Stephen A. Smith is slamming Fox News for some brazen hypocrisy — while on Fox News.
The sports commentator appeared on Tuesday’s edition of “Hannity” and sternly pushed back when its conservative host reiterated the baseless claim from President Donald Trump that diversity, equity and inclusion efforts caused a recent deadly plane crash.
A midair collision in Washington, D.C., between a military helicopter and an American Airlines jet killed all 67 people aboard the vehicles last week, before a plane crash Friday in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, killed all six people aboard and one person on the ground.
Sean Hannity claimed Tuesday that the Federal Aviation Administration hired people with “severe intellectual” and “psychiatric” disabilities prior to the crashes, citing language from the FAA’s website that Trump pointed to at a recent briefing about the accidents. He failed to mention that the wording came from a biographical questionnaire the agency implemented to broaden recruitment, however, and had been on the FAA website since at least 2013.
But Smith was mostly baffled that a Fox News host was worried about “unqualified” people in high positions.
“My issue with the eradication of DEI was … the explanation that the Trump administration and others were giving about it,” Smith said Tuesday. “I don’t want to hear DEI automatically being about people who happen to be minorities that are unqualified.”
The ESPN personality eventually told Hannity that they should discuss Pete Hegseth, a former “Fox & Friends Weekend” host who was confirmed last month as Secretary of Defense, “because he’s your former colleague” — only for Hannity to protest.
“Keep my friend outta this,” he warned Smith.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
“Excuse me,” Smith replied Tuesday. “Listen, I’m not bringing up anything personal. I’m simply saying, ‘My God, Sean.’ When you’re talking about people who are unqualified, I wish him nothing but the best — he served our country in the military, I get all of that.”
He continued, “But when you are a weekend host on Fox News and now you’re the defense secretary of the United States overseeing three and a half million people, that is not qualified!”
Hannity argued otherwise because Hegseth served in the military and attended an Ivy League university. But he failed to acknowledge the lack of evidence that either of the pilots involved in the recent crashes were unqualified — or without similar accomplishments.
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Investigations into the accidents are ongoing.
