CNN host Chris Cuomo set the tone for a contentious segment during a Monday program on that network, saying, “Here’s what we know. The president has a tendency to attack what he fears.”

“If that holds true,” he added, “he is really worried about the Woodward book.”

Cuomo (above center) also noted how President Donald Trump’s appraisal that legendary Watergate journalist Bob Woodward was “acting like a Democratic Party operative” was a “false suggestion.”

Jennifer Granholm, a former Democratic governor of Michigan (above left), kicked things off by comparing Bob Woodward, whom she said is regarded as “the greatest journalist of his generation,” to the current sitting president, whom she described as “the man of the lie” on the raucous CNN segment.

“He can no longer continue to do what he’s been doing for the past year and a half,” said former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa., above right), who suggested the president would do well to return to a time, amid the presidential campaign debates, that he had been more “focused” and “on message.”

“It is time for him to get his game face on,” Santorum added.

“People do not want a bunch of spineless yes men,” said Granholm. “They want a check on this president.”

Granholm posited that as more stories emerge — such as those in Woodward’s book, along with the anonymous op-ed published recently in The New York Times — people will become more insistent that the “poop show in Washington” is “checked.”

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“So what you’re saying is impeachment,” said Santorum. “That’s your ‘check’ … complete obstruction.”

Related: Here Are Monday’s Eight Most Biased Media Questions to Sarah Sanders

“Don’t cooperate with anything. Shut down everything. That’s what people want?” Santorum added, challenging Granholm’s assessment of the country’s desires.

“Even you have to be sick and tired of the lies that come out of this man’s mouth every single day,” Granholm charged. “At some point, you’ve got to throw your hands up and say, ‘Oh my God, we need better leadership in this country.’”

Santorum pushed back on that.

“There are a lot of people in this administration and in the Congress who are effectively checking Donald Trump’s excesses,” he said.

He added that those checks are seen in books like Woodward’s and that the Democrats’ obstruction strategy is an ineffective means of checking the president.

“They’re just saying ‘Hell, no’ to anything that this president wants to do,” Santorum added.

“That’s not true,” Granholm interrupted.

Cuomo interjected, asking if Democrats were “taking the McConnell playbook and making it their own,” pointing out Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) statement, from during the Obama administration, that legislators were there to obstruct.

Santorum called McConnell’s statement “stupid.”

Check out these tweets on the exchange — then see the video below.

Watch this video:

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