ESPN personality Stephen A. Smith wagged a finger at Sean Hannity on his own show for his choice of words during a heated interview Thursday night.

The moment came during a discussion about Smith’s interview with Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, authors of Original Sin, earlier this week.

The interview started off cordial enough — with both Hannity and Smith paying each other compliments — but devolved as Hannity asked for some words of affirmation, namely, “You were right.”

When Smith initially resisted, Hannity said, “I gave you time to talk. And you whine and bitch and moan about how I don’t give you any time.”

“Watch your language,” Smith fired back. “You don’t need to use that language over the airwaves on primetime television. Watch your mouth. The point I’m making to you, Sean, is this. What exactly is it that you were right about? Tell me what you want me to say that you were right about. And I’ll tell you if you are.”

Read the exchange here:

SEAN HANNITY: Anyway, here now with reaction. He is the host of the Stephen A. Smith Show. Stephen A., I hate to do this. I’ve got to compliment you — I hate, I really do — I hate to start an interview in a nice way, but you did a great job and you’re honest and you’re asking the right questions. Here’s the problem with Jake. We started reporting on this show in 2019 Joe’s cognitive decline. You watch my show. We played tape after tape after tape after tape after tape. Anybody with eyes to see knew he didn’t cover it. He excoriated Lara Trump. His network didn’t cover it, and now he’s making money off the deal. Reaction?

STEPHEN A. SMITH: Well, first of all, he apologized for it. He said he called Lara Trump to apologize, which obviously she deserved.

HANNITY: A little late.

SMITH: OK, that’s fine. And I’m not here to defend Jake Tapper. I don’t know him. I’ve met him a couple of times. I’ve been interviewed about him, by him a couple of times. I interviewed him yesterday on my show, and that’s as far as our relationship goes. But, you guys who are aficionados in the political stratosphere are more apt to question and to judge accordingly. And I’m not here to refute that. What I would say to you, however, is that I don’t cover politics. I was covering sports and two years before the election, almost two years before the election, I was pointing the finger at Joe Biden and what I saw. To me, if you had two eyes and you could see, you saw what the hell was going on here, you saw debilitation kicking in. You saw, you know, not incapacitated, but pretty damn close. He just didn’t seem like himself. And you knew something was fishy was going on. And I think that right now, as everybody looks to Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson and their book, Original Sin, I think the biggest thing to peel from that are the culprits within the Democratic Party, who knew about the cognitive decline are far more up close than you, myself or many, many other American citizens knew. And they were not only complicit, but were willing to circumvent the Constitution of the United States. They were willing to shove aside the wishes of American voters. They understood what the system entails. They wanted to bypass a primary. They wanted to bypass elements of the democratic process in order to ensure that their guy was in office instead of Donald Trump. And to me, when you’ve walked around as a party labeling Donald Trump an existential threat for years, FOR YEARS, and then a book comes out detailing how several people within the administration and within the Democratic Party may have been guilty of this instead of Trump. I find that to be incredibly alarming. And it’s something, usually I’m getting on you for how dogged you are and relentless and
persistent you are with your takes on the Democratic Party, Sean, but you will not get a dissenting word from me.

HANNITY: You wanna say it?

SMITH: I think hell needs to rain down upon anybody involved in anything-

HANNITY: Why don’t you just say it? “Hannity, you were right.” You can say it. You can say, “Sean Hannity was right and they were wrong.”

SMITH: Hold on, hold on, hold on. First of all, welcome back to the States. I know you overseas. You were sitting there chilling and having a good time for a little while. But now that you’re back talking to me, let’s be very, very clear.

HANNITY: I gave you time to talk. and you whine and bitch and moan about how I don’t give you any time.

SMITH: Watch your language. You don’t need to use that language over the airwaves on primetime television. Watch your mouth. The point I’m making to you, Sean, is this. What exactly is it that you were right about? Tell me what you want me to say that you were right about. And I’ll tell you if you are.