Fox News host Tucker Carlson rarely, if ever, interviews a liberal or Democratic guest without sandbagging him or her. But Congressman Jim Himes (D-CT) not only refused to be sandbagged, he turned the tables on Carlson and put him on defense at times.
Himes, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, visited the Tucker Carlson Tonight show to discuss U.S. intelligence gathering of Russia’s operations during the 2016 presidential campaign and Donald Trump's claims that President Obama wiretapped him..
The discussion was 17 minutes of strong back and forth and included exchanges such as this. Notice how Himes refused to let Carlson control the conversation and challenged Carlson's framing of the discussion:
HIMES: You used the word spying.
CARLSON: Yes, I did.
HIMES: I don’t quite know what that means because -
CARLSON: I'll tell you what it is, it means – [inaudible] being listened in to.
HIMES: No, no, no, no. Oh, OK, so that’s what police do when they’re listening in on drug dealers and child molesters?
CARLSON: It’s spying and sometimes it’s justified and sometimes it isn’t but let’s call it what it is, it’s spying.
HIMES: No, spying is when we go to Russia and try to recruit Russian generals to give us Russian secrets. When law enforcement is listening to anybody, that is law enforcement.
CARLSON: OK, it’s law enforcement. In a lot of cases, it’s legitimate. In most cases, it’s legal. But it’s still spying. This is a pointless semantic argument. I want to get to the core. Are U.S. intelligence agencies listening in on American citizens connected to the Trump campaign or the administration without their knowledge? You can call it whatever you want.
HIMES (interrupting): No, the U.S. intelligence agencies do not do that. The FBI may listen in on conversations that Americans are having. If a federal judge has been convinced that there is probable cause to award a warrant. So that piece of it, that probable cause, that makes it not spying.
But the best part was later, when Himes called out Carlson's bias. I don’t know why all Democratic and liberal guests don’t do this.
HIMES: You can ask the question using Barack Obama’s name as many times as you want but that will not change the underlying fact that the president of the United States does not have the authority to order a wiretap on anybody and, in fact, if the president did that, that would be a severe violation, probably of the law.
CARLSON: I’m not alleging that …
HIMES: You just said that.
And my favorite part, in which Himes called out Fox News' bias:
HIMES: Once again, Tucker, you’re putting words into my mouth. That’s a lot of fun on Fox News but it’s not particularly accurate of the way the intelligence community operates.
CARLSON: I’m asking you real questions.
HIMES: No, you’re not, you’re asking me loaded questions.
Textbook. Case. I think we can name Himes as our latest Top Dog.
Watch it below, from the March 6, 2017 Tucker Carlson Tonight.
Originally published at Newshounds.us
