Things didn’t go so well for a Democratic operative who tried to wiggle out of unavoidable truths on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show Tuesday night — the same day and just hours after police revealed charges against an illegal immigrant for the murder of a young Iowa college student, Mollie Tibbetts.

“Why don’t Americans have a right to police their own borders and say, ‘If you’re not here legally, you have to leave now?’” said Carlson to guest Luis Miranda (shown above right), former Democratic National Committee (DNC) communications director, on his show, “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

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Incredulously, even in the face of the Tibbetts tragedy, Miranda gave a non-answer to Carlson’s question.

He instead went on a mini-tangent, saying that Chris Watts, the man this week accused of killing his pregnant wife and two daughters in Frederick, Colorado, was white, but Watts didn’t “speak for all white men” — implying that Tibbetts’ murderer didn’t represent all illegal immigrants’ motives and deeds.

Miranda’s attempt to draw a false equivalency and inject race into a nonrace-based discussion didn’t fly.

After a few moments of cross-talk wherein Miranda tried — and failed — to get the upper hand, Carlson shut him down.

“Hey, hey, Luis,” Carlson said, pointing into the camera at his guest. “I didn’t say anything about this man’s race. This story’s not about race. Don’t make it about race. Stop that.”

“This was about nationality and citizenship,” Carlson added. “[Tibbetts’ alleged killer] had no right to be here. That’s the difference.”

Then Carlson spelled it out, plain and simple.

“You and your party tell us that we’re racists for wanting to enforce our own laws. It has nothing to do with race. It has everything to do with whether we think laws are real.”

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Miranda offered a point on which he thought the two might agree — that America’s immigration system is “horribly broken.”

Carlson wasn’t having that, either.

“This is just spin,” he said.

He again attempted to redirect his guest to answer the same question he posed at the beginning of the segment — why is it that so many on the Left seem to be laboring under the false impression that America has no right to police its own borders and to insist on the deportation of those who are here illegally?

Related: Asked About Murder of Mollie Tibbetts, Elizabeth Warren Laments the Plight of Illegals (Watch)

The pair did arrive at one point of agreement: Corporations that invite illegal immigrants to enter the country and work for abysmal wages are a significant part of the problem. But their agreement was short-lived.

“With respect, you’re not telling the truth,” Carlson charged at the end of the segment. That was when Miranda blamed the Trump administration for “politicizing border enforcement” while lauding the Obama administration’s supposed success at stemming the flow of guns, drugs, and illegal immigrants over the border.

See the heated segment in the video below.

Michele Blood is a Flemington, New Jersey-based freelance writer and a regular contributor to LifeZette.