When tea party favorite Texas congressman Louie Gohmert (R) showed up on the Fox Business Network to talk about how he stood up against President Barack Obama on raising the debt ceiling on Tuesday, he probably didn't expect a 6-minute reprimand -- but that's exactly what he got.
Fox Business host Lou Dobbs pointed out that 199 Republicans in the House had gone against their own Speaker, Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), and voted against a bill to raise the nation's debt limit.
"What is your thinking, what is your motivation?" Dobbs said, starting the interview with a calm tone.
But when Gohmert launched into an attack on House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Dobbs quickly demanded an answer.
"How in the world do you expect the Republican Party to not find itself in the same strategic blind and bind that it was in last year when you guys shut down the federal government?" the host wanted to know. "There comes a time where there just has to be some pragmatism. Go out an win an election, get 400 members, get 100 senators, get a presidency."
"I don't expect us not to be in the same bind, and that's why I was so against what we did here," Gohmert opined. "If there's going to be debt ceiling increase, we have got to put some things in there that fundamentally make our system better where we don't have to keep doing this."
Gohmert went on to justify his vote saying that Boehner had not kept his promise to reform the tax code in 2006 when George W. Bush was president.
"In 2006!" Dobbs exclaimed. "You are surely aware of the fact that you are a majority in one branch of government!"
"You betcha we are, and no bill gets passed unless the House agrees to it!" Gohmert shot back.
Come on!" Dobbs said. "You know as well as I do that half of the bills you're passing are pure -- and I think I may generous in my percentage -- are absolutely political theater because you know they will die in the Senate, you know that a Democrat president will kill them. What do you expect to do when you are in the majority in one branch of government?"
"It seems to me that this is a colossal waste," he added.
At that point, Gohmert pivoted to hype an effort to audit the Federal Reserve, something that has been an obsession for many tea party supporters.
"I repeat, you are not in control of the federal government," Dobbs insisted. "I don't think the American people, with all due respect, can draw the same causal relationship that you do from a government shutdown to the benefit of working men and women, and the middle class of this country. You failed to make such a connection in 1996, you failed to do so last fall!"
Watch this video from Fox Business News, broadcast Feb. 11, 2014.
