Bob Beckel explodes at Eric Bolling over Trump wiretapping accusation

Former Democratic strategist Bob Beckel battled it out Monday with his co-hosts on "The Five" about Trump's explosive claim that former President Obama wiretapped him before the election.

"What about, Eric, that the FBI director yesterday," Dana Perino asked, "or on Saturday, asked the Justice Department to refute what the president had said in the morning. And that the Justice Department refuses to do it."

"So, I'm watching all of this unfold over the weekend," Eric Bolling said, "I listened to President Obama's response from his spokesperson, it was very very carefully worded, left the door open that something could have been going on, clearly could have, we know there was a FISA court request, in, I believe June or July over the Summer. It was turned down, which is highly unusual.

Literally thousands upon thousands of FISA court requests, warrants for wiretapping and surveillance go unchecked, they say 'yeah,' it's almost a rubber stamp thing. For many many years it would go like that.

So in June or July, it was turned down because there wasn't sufficient evidence. And then the second one was apparently accepted. Now, President Obama said that he didn't order it.

"I went back and there's an article in the New York Times and it happened to be published on January 20th," Bolling explained, "that was the inauguration day, it was by Michael Schmidt. Michael Schmidt is the same reporter who exposed the Hillary Clinton email server. Remember she had her own email server? It was an expose in the New York Times and it was explosive.

He wrote an article that hit on January 20th that actually talked about a wiretap to the Trump Towers, now he didn't say exactly to Donald Trump but they're, if it's in the New York Times, I would think that it would be sourced and second-sourced, so clearly at least Michael Schmidt thinks that there was a wiretap to to the Trump Tower in October, which is exactly what Donald Trump is accusing them of.

After Gutfeld offered his opinion on the matter, they went to Beckel, who had been fuming during Bolling's long defense of Trump.

"The chances of there being clarity on this are about the chances of me running the Boston Marathon," he joked. "I was in the third FISA court in 1978. It was formed after the takeover of the, or excuse me, the Iranians taking over our embassy. And the idea that you could get thousands of these things done is just total and complete bull!"

"Bob," Bolling interrupted, "last year there 1589 requests, 1588 were accepted, one was turned down. One was turned down. 1589."

"Don't do it to yourself!" Beckel yelled back, "Eric, Eric, Eric, let me explain something to you. In order for a FISA judge to agree to a wiretap of a U.S. citizen requires proof, very strong proof, of a felony or treason. Now that means if Trump wants to get up. now wait a second let me finish. If you want to sit her, listen why don't you get your pom poms out and cheer for this guy?!"

"I've been in a FISA court," Beckel angrily pronounced, "and you don't, and that's wrong!"

"And you know what, here's the other thing, very simple," Beckel explained more calmly. "There's a list of who got a FISA charge and who didn't. And find a judge to look into it and to be asked to look into it and they find out, and there will be no Trump name on it. This guy is now almost to the point, and I have a very strong suggestion as an American, I think that he ought not have control of the nuclear codes. It oughta have Pence, him and the secretary of defense, because this guy is starting to lose it!"

Dana Perino offered another way to get to the bottom of the accusations, saying, "if you're the president of the United States, you can call anybody at any time, call the Justice Department and say, 'I'd like you to come over here with those warrants, I want to see if the president asked for a warrant on me. Why not do that? Instead of causing this huge problem?"

"By the way, you're a hundred percent right, because he is now the president of the United States, and he has the ability and the right and the authority to be able to investigate, to get a copy..."

Beckel eventually said, "I will guarantee if Barack Obama did that he'll have to go away to jail for the rest of his life."

Trump made the demand that Congress investigate his accusations of wiretapping from Obama Sunday, incurring a firestorm of criticism and prompting an Obama spokesperson to deny the former President ever ordered the surveillance to be done. FBI Director Comey asked the Department of Justice to deny the claims according to the New York Times.