It’s getting more complicated over at Fox News as we move into day three of impeachment inquiry news.
On Wednesday night, primetime host Tucker Carlson slapped back at afternoon news anchor Shepard Smith’s rebuke of a guest on Carlson’s Tuesday night show whom Smith had called “repugnant.” “Unlike maybe some dayside hosts, I’m not very partisan,” Carlson said of Smith.
“Why do we find ourselves in a situation where people aren’t willing to admit that their passions are guiding their news coverage?” Carlson added. “Wouldn’t it be better if we just said out loud, ‘You know, this is what I think’?”
It all started on Tuesday when Carlson guest and former U.S. Attorney Joe diGenova called Fox News’ Senior Judicial Analyst Andrew Napolitano “a fool” for suggesting President Trump may have broken the law by soliciting aid for his campaign from a foreign government as he is accused of doing in a phone call to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.
On Wednesday, Smith came to Napolitano’s defense and called di Genova’s comments “repugnant,” He also described diGenova as a partisan guest who supports Trump and appeared during “primetime opinion programming.”
That didn’t sit well with Carson, who invited di Genova back on Wednesday night and called out his colleague.
“Apparently our daytime host, who hosted Judge Napolitano, was watching last night and was outraged by what you said and quite ironically called you partisan,” Carlson told diGenova, playing the clip. “Not clear if that was you or me but someone is repugnant!”
Carlson, a host in the lineup of what Smith called the network’s primetime opinion programming, said, “Now, unlike maybe some dayside hosts, I’m not very partisan.”
DiGenova repeated his belief that Trump didn’t commit a crime based on the evidence presented so far, and Carlson renewed his criticism of Smith, and perhaps Napolitano, for their contradictory analysis.
“It doesn’t seem honest to me when a host — any host on any channel, including this one — pretends that the answer is obvious. That’s not news, is it? That’s opinion,” Carlson said.
Smith is regarded as one of Fox News’ core news team members and is seen as an unbiased, factual anchor who consistently reports straight news about Trump.
A representative for Fox News did not immediately return a request for comment.
Watch the segment above.