"You tell his sanctimonious a** to calm down": Stephen A. Smith goes deep into his bag to troll Dan Le Batard

ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith has long been known to not hold back from speaking out on controversial topics.

Such was the case when Smith called out UFC president Dana White in January for slapping his wife. However, Smith faced some flak for speaking on the incident, including from his friend and podcast host Dan Le Batard. So, Smith made sure to let Le Batard hear about it during a recent rant on his show.

On “The Stephen A. Smith Show,” with Le Batard, Smith spoke about how he was one of the only talk show hosts to cover the controversy:

“I remember when you brought up the whole Dana White situation. I was the one person that spoke about it,” Smith said.

“If you remember my words were, ‘Why the hell am I on air speaking about it?’ … I didn’t hear any other shows, anybody clamoring for any other shows, everybody was asking for Stephen A. Smith.”

Smith then called Le Batard out for calling his show dumb while roasting “The Dan Le Batard Show” for not being too bright, too:

“And then you talk about the show being dumb. … And I’m saying, “Wait a minute, have you seen some of the stuff that has happened on The Dan Le Batard Show?’” Smith said.

He continued:

“Now, I find it funny, I find it comical. And I’m like, ‘There’s no harm; you got an audience, they love it. I love it, I love you, I love your team.’

"But I’m sitting there like, ‘Damn, it ain’t like y’all doing a whole bunch of stuff that’s just so cerebral and outstanding and so serious and ethical and all of this other stuff. You’ve got your flavor; other people have theirs. What’s the problem?”

Smith also called Le Batard sanctimonious for acting like he's better than others:

“You do seem to be a bit sanctimonious,” Smith said. “I’m not going to use the word hypocritical because I think that’s harsh, and I don’t think you deserve that, especially from your buddy, who is me.

"But sanctimonious, I just got off the phone with my man Mike Wilbon, he’s listening right now. … He was like this, ‘We both like Dan. He’s our brother. But you tell his sanctimonious a** to calm down.’ That is a quote from Mike Wilbon, and I would echo that quote, Dan. Sanctimonious, yes.”

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Dan Le Batard accepts Stephen A. Smith’s sanctimonious comments

ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith and Dan Le Batard

Fortunately, for Stephen A. Smith, Dan Le Batard was a good sport after hearing his comments.

Following Smith’s rant, Le Batard joked that his criticism was fair and thanked him for not being too harsh:

“I think that’s a fair criticism of me,” Le Batard said.

“I appreciate that you were gentle with the downgrade from hypocrite to sanctimonious.”

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