Jennifer Palmieri, who served as Hillary Clinton's communications director during the 2016 presidential campaign, did not appreciate being asked about her views on gun control on Wednesday.
Palmieri appeared on Fox News' "Tucker Carlson Tonight," where she took issue with the host's questions. Carlson asked Palmieri whether she would ever support the government confiscating guns from from law-abiding citizens. She responded that she supports an assault-weapons ban.
"I think there should be an assault-weapons ban," said Palmieri, who previously served as White House communications director under President Barack Obama. "I don't think people need to take their weapons away, but there should be an assault-weapons ban."
Carlson asked what would happen to people who already have so-called assault weapons, and Palmieri took issue with the question.
"You are setting the conversation up to purposefully put me in a box," she replied, and the two argued about whether such a question is sincere.
Palmieri said his questions were "designed to set me up." She told Carlson that his questions would be better if they focused on the work of gun-control activists, who recently organized a march calling for new laws.
"I think a sincere question would be when it came to guns: 'Wow, do you know why people are taking to the streets? Do you know why people are calling for Australian-like gun reform?' Because children are dying in schools at an outrageous number," Palmieri said.
Palmieri's two most prominent former bosses, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, both held up Australia's National Firearms Agreement as a program to consider emulating. It involved the confiscation of hundreds of thousands of guns through a mandatory buyback program.
As Palmieri tried to move past the question, she said her husband has "a number of guns."
This week, Palmieri released her new book, Dear Madam President: An Open Letter to the Women Who Will Run the World, part of which dealt with the difficulty of Clinton's 2016 election defeat.