Republican presidential contender Carly Fiorina has to be Chris Matthews's worst nightmare: a conservative who punches back hard and doesn't let Chris control the narrative during his interview.
Consider this part of her interview on the August 6 edition of Hardball:
MSNBC
Hardball
August 6, 2015CHRIS MATTHEWS, host: You called Hillary Clinton a liar tonight on a number of occasions. Do you want to explain why you would use such a almost end-of-conversation term for your possible opponent next year?
CARLY FIORINA: Because it's true. You know, one of the things that I think people are tired of in politics and Republicans do it as well is we don't use common-sense language. We talk in sanitized sound bites. I don't but most politicians do. People are tired of sanitized sound bites and bumper sticker rhetoric. They want to have a conversation about the real issues. And by any standard common sense measure, Hillary Clinton has lied: about Benghazi, and about her emails, and about her server.
MATTHEWS: How do you debate someone if it comes to that, you would have three national debates with someone you once again just, this moment, called a liar? Do you just begin the debate with I don't believe a word you say? You're a dishonest person? It seems to me, having worked in Washington all these years. You say it's just not common sense. But you really think that's a way to engage in a debate? To call your opponent a liar? I'm astounded by that judgment of yours.
FIORINA: Well, first I was very specific about the subjects about which I think she has lied. I didn't say she lied about everything. I was very specific. Very fact-based, actually. You are the one who's made a generalized comment now about her. Not me.
MATTHEWS: Well, once you call a person, once you call a person--
FIORINA: Secondly, I will debate her. Excuse me. Secondly, I will debate her --
MATTHEWS: Go through your list.
FIORINA: I will debate her on the facts and the issues.
MATTHEWS: Go through your list of where she's lied.
FIORINA: Benghazi, e-mails, and server. I will debate her on the issues facing this nation. I will debate her on her positions. I will ask her, for example, how she can possibly continue to defend Planned Parenthood.
I will ask her why she continues to say she's a champion of the middle class while every single proposal she has put forward makes crony capitalism worse and worse and worse, which makes income inequality worse. I would ask her why she declared victory in Iraq in 2011. Why she called Bashar al Assad a positive reformer. Why she thought she could stop Putin's ambition -- a man I have met -- with a gimmicky button. I will ask her why she got every single foreign policy issue wrong as Secretary of State. That's how I'll debate her. On the issues.
MATTHEWS: Let me put a fine point on that. Why did she lie, or how did she lie, as you put it, about Benghazi? Where was her lie?
FIORINA: Okay. So it's very clear from all the data, it's very clear from the data, from the emails that she, that the President of the United States, that the Secretary of State, and that the military understood that this was a purposeful terrorist attack on the anniversary of 9/11 and they understood it while it was going on.
So tell me then, why would you talk about the next day from the State Department, why would you talk about a video? Why would you explain that this is not America? Why would you stand over the bodies of the fallen and say it again? Why not come out and say, this was a purposeful terrorist attack on our embassy. Four brave Americans were killed and we are going to seek retribution.
MATTHEWS: Thank you, Carly Fiorina. I see why you stood out tonight.
