It was a simple opening question that Emma Alberici's Lateline guest, Islamic radical Wassim Doureihi, would not answer, but there was one other question the ABC host wished she could have asked.
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Alberici was at loggerheads with Doureihi, of the group Hizb ut-Tahrir, when he blatantly dodged her line of questions on Wednesday night about the tactics of Islamic State extremists.
At one point, the Lateline host asked: "Are you outraged by the image of an Australian-born child of seven-years-old holding up severed heads like trophies in Iraq or Syria?"
Mr Doureihi replied: "Let me tell you what I am outraged by," before an angry Alberici admonished him for avoiding the question, which went on to become the theme of the night.
On reflection, Alberici said she hated that she didn't get the chance to ask this question:
"In his caliphate, in his ideal Islamic state would I, as a woman, have the opportunity to sit opposite him as an equal and engage in a robust discussion about these issues on the public broadcaster? I don't think he would have answered," she told Fairfax Media.
Alberici said the interview was her most frustrating to date, but the tension in the studio did not cool after the 11-minute segment.
"The director made a joke that he should have just kept cutting back to he [Wassim] and I having it out between segments," Alberici said.
"But perhaps it's not even right to categorise it as having it out. He asked me a bizarre question, he said if you really want answers to those questions you have my number. And I was really confused."
She said she couldn't see why Mr Doureihi was happy to talk about the issues privately but not publicly.
"I dont understand why someone given a very public platform through the Lateline program wouldn't use that opportunity to prosecute his case."
Hizb ut-Tahrir defines itself as a political group aiming "to resume the Islamic way of life and to convey the Islamic dawa [call] to the world."
But of their calls for a global caliphate which follows sharia law, Alberici said an important point must be made.
"The kind of messages on the Hizb ut-Tahrir website and the political manifesto you can find, I hope most Australians don't associate that with general moderate Muslim thinking, because I don't think that's right," she said.
The Lateline host was commended on Thursday by the Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, who felt she "spoke for our country."
Alberici said, while the opinion of the PM was important, her approach in the interview was merely the Lateline-way.
"We have a long history at Lateline of conducting interviews without fear or favour. So it's terrific we have that kind of endorsement from the PM, but it's just as terrific that in our plural liberal democracy people can disagree," she said.
"But I don't think it's the best interview I've ever done, because I didn't get any answers!"
with Latika Bourke
