The war of words between Fox News hosts over Trump’s actions on Ukraine ratcheted up another notch as primetime host Tucker Carlson repeatedly mocked Shepard Smith and parodied the latter’s claim calling him “repugnant.”

The network’s increasingly nasty back-and-forth was ignited two days ago when Fox News legal analyst, former Judge Andrew Napolitano, blasted Trump’s acknowledgement that he solicited help from the Ukrainian president in investigating potential 2020 rival Joe Biden, unequivocally telling Smith that Trump’s actions constituted “a crime.”

This claim drew a strong rebuttal hours later on Carlson’s show from stridently pro-Trump lawyer Joe diGenova, who fired back at Napolitano, dismissing him as a “fool.” This volley was then returned on Wednesday by Smith, who called diGenova a “partisan guest” and decried as  “repugnant “ the previous attacks on Napolitano.

“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 noted to diGenova on Wednesday night, in the latest salvo of the rhetorical battle.

After running the clip of Smith’s “repugnant” comment, Carlson sarcastically over-enunciated the word in reply. “Not clear if that was you or me but someone is repugnant!” he said, before reiterating his doubts about Napolitano’s claim Trump committed a crime.

“Now, unlike maybe some dayside hosts, I’m not very partisan,” Carlson claimed, incredibly. “Is it a crime or not? Given everything that’s happened in the last 24 hours. I want to throw it to you again. Was it a crime or not?”

After diGenova unsurprisingly said that Trump’s actions were not a crime, Carlson went on to again blast Smith, who is considered part of the network’s daytime news team, although not by name.

“It doesn’t seem honest to me when a host, any host on any channel, including this one, pretends that the answer is obvious,” Carlson said. “That’s not news, is it? That’s opinion.”

“Why do we find our selves in a situation where people aren’t willing to admit that their passions are guiding their news coverage?” Carlson then asked, again not-so-subtly trashing Smith. “Wouldn’t it be better if we just said out loud you know this is what I think? For example you will never hear me criticize Rachel Maddow. I never agree with anything she says. But she is straightforward, it’s her opinion. Why wouldn’t it be better if we were all that transparent about what’s driving our shows?”

“It makes people cynical when you dress up news coverage, when you dress up partisanship as news coverage and pretend that your angry political opinions are news, you know, people tune out,” Carlson added, in one final dig.

Watch the video above, via Fox News. 

 

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