Fox Business Network host Lou Dobbs was challenged Wednesday night by conservative columnist Byron York over his unrelenting criticism of Attorney General Bill Barr.

Ever since the AG admitted to the press that President Donald Trump’s tweets concerning the Department of Justice’s activities impede his ability to perform the duties of his esteemed job, Dobbs has been on his case.

“I guess I’m so disappointed in Bill Barr — I have to say this,” he originally said last week. “It’s a damn shame when he doesn’t get what this president has gone through and what the American people have gone through, and what his charge is as attorney general.”

He doubled down on this sentiment Wednesday, but this time he received some unexpected pushback.

Listen, via FBN’s “Lou Dobbs Tonight”:



(Source: Fox Business Network)

“Here’s a man who’s taking on his president in public,” he complained. “He’s wrong; the president is right. He’s complaining because the president is using new media and Barr is using old media to complain about the president using new media. The president is right. He has the authority over the Justice Department. What the hell is wrong with Barr?”

Nothing, York countered.

“Barr went on broadcast television to complain about the president’s tweets,” he replied. “I agree with you on the media thing, [but] I disagree with you on the fact that the president’s tweets do cause trouble for William Barr.”

So does the president, in fact.

Speaking with the press on Tuesday, the president readily admitted that his tweets do make life more unnecessarily difficulty for the AG.

“I do make his job harder. I do agree with that,” he said. “He’s a very straight shooter. We have a great attorney general and he’s working very hard.”

However, he did also note how his social media posts help him communicate directly with the American people and thus bypass the media’s lies.

“[E]verybody has the right to speak their mind,” he said. “And I use social media. I guess I use it well, because here I am. I’m here. And I probably wouldn’t have gotten here without social media because I certainly don’t get fair press. So I wouldn’t have gotten here without social media and, perhaps, with all of the hoaxes.”

Listen:

Pres. Trump says he has “total confidence” in Attorney General Bill Barr. Barr told @PierreTABC last week that the president’s public comments about the Justice Department’s work make his job “impossible.” https://t.co/AuSDZtEe81 pic.twitter.com/w5S2BiAsSl — ABC News (@ABC) February 18, 2020

Dobbs echoed the president’s points Wednesday.

“I love a president, whether it’s FDR or whether it’s President Trump, talking directly to the American people,” he said. “As FDR did, President Trump has changed history by communicating directly to the American people. And you know that.”

But again York countered the host — this noting that the president’s interference in former campaign adviser Roger Stone’s case wasn’t necessary.

“Look at the substance of this,” he said. “A lot of the prosecutors say that the suggested seven to nine year term sentence for Roger Stone really was excessive and that three to four was more like it. And Bill Barr took care of this. He actually had the Justice Department change the condition on this.”

“The misfortune of it was he didn’t take care of it until the president had already pointed it out a day before,” Dobbs replied.

“He says he was doing it before the president,” York rebutted.

“I’m sure that he was, but unfortunately for him, the president had already made his call,” the host doubled down.

It’s actually been “unfortunate” for both the president and Barr, though.

What’s known is that the four original prosecutors on the case — all of them reportedly previously members of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s collusion delusion probe — had recommended he serve up to nine years in prison for his “process crimes.”

When Attorney General Bill Barr learned of their draconian sentence, he expressed his concerns to the prosecutors. But after news broke on Feb. 10 that the prosecutors were moving forward with the nine-year recommendation anyway, Barr vowed to take action.

“I was very surprised,” he said in an interview last week with ABC News. “And once I confirmed that that’s actually what we filed, I said that night, to my staff, that we had to get ready cause we had to do something in the morning to amend that and clarify what our position was.”

But before he could take formal action, the president posted the following tweet:

This is a horrible and very unfair situation. The real crimes were on the other side, as nothing happens to them. Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice! https://t.co/rHPfYX6Vbv — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 11, 2020

Because of the timing of the tweet, which the president dropped before the AG’s team could take action, a firestorm of outrage from congressional Democrats and their media allies erupted, with the left accusing both Trump and Barr of corruption … again.

Even word of a possible second impeachment has emerged …

The argument by York and other defenders of the AG has been that all of this controversy could have been avoided had Trump not tweeted about the case.

It made everybody look bad “because it all seemed to be about the same time and [it therefore made it] very, very easy for all the enemies to say the president changed Barr’s position on this,” York rightly explained.

But as also rightly noted by Dobbs in rebuttal, “They’ll say whatever the hell they want to distract the president.”

True.

He then concluded by reiterating his belief that Barr has made a mistake and suggesting that the AG should instead use his time to eliminate all the “deep state” operatives in the DOJ.

“This is a mistake on the part of the attorney general, and he needs to move forward and do his job,” he said. “And that means take the dirty, rotten, politically corrupt SOBs in that Justice Department and FBI and put them in jail!”

The president definitely wouldn’t disagree with that demand.