Stephen A. Smith has fired back at Michelle Obama following her harsh critique of ESPN this week, criticizing the former First Lady for her ‘offensive’ remarks regarding her previous vote for Donald Trump.

Obama harshly criticized ESPN and its hosts, including First Take star Smith, on the most recent episode of her ‘IMO’ podcast, likening the network to the reality TV show ‘The Real Housewives of Atlanta’.

She commented: ‘It’s the same drama, with them shouting at each other and not getting along, you know? I mean, Stephen A. Smith, he’s just like any other talk show host.’

In the wake of her ‘Real Housewives’ jibe, Smith responded to Obama on the latest episode of his YouTube show.

After urging her to invite people onto the IMO podcast with ‘dissenting opinions’, he hit out at the 61-year-old for her rhetoric about Trump and the Republican party ahead of last year’s presidential election.

‘Michelle Obama, I wanna take this opportunity to remind you that while you are revered by me personally, and I truly, truly mean that with the greatest sincerity, I’m still a bit salty at you,’ Smith said. 

‘When you were campaigning on behalf of the former Vice President Kamala Harris, you said a vote for Trump was a vote against you and a vote against y’all as women. I want to say for the record – I took major offense to that.

‘I think to this day that is the only thing that I didn’t like that you said, I didn’t appreciate it. Because there’s so many things that go into deciding where your vote is going to go.

‘For some people, it’s all about the economy. For others, it’s all about national security. For some people, it is immigration. For some people, it’s safety in the streets of America. Long before they think about pro-choice or pro-life.’

Smith then briefly praised Obama after branding her ‘sensational’ and claiming that both she and husband Barack would beat Trump in an election if either of them decide to run in the future.

He then addressed her comments about ESPN, which he ‘respectfully disagreed’ with after hearing the comparison to the Real Housewives. 

‘So this doesn’t have anything to do with what you were talking about, how sports and reality TV mirror one another, even though we would beg to differ,’ the ESPN host continued. ‘Because a lot of things on reality TV are made-up situations and scenarios to provoke reactions and all of that stuff.

‘We’re at sports, that’s live entertainment, and you’re actually competing against one another is big time. No, reality TV is not like that. You’re so wrong about that, about that assertion, but that’s neither here nor there.

‘You will never hear me utter a negative word about you, but I respectfully disagreed and still remain pretty salty about what you said about us,’ Smith said, before adding that Obama ‘sort of blackmail[ed] us emotionally into trying to compel us to vote one way or another.’

Smith, widely considered the face of ESPN, emerged as a shock presidential candidate earlier this year after a national survey revealed that he would receive more support than several high-profile Democrat hopefuls in three years’ time.

In an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com shortly after the survey was released, the 57-year-old left the door open to run if the American people call for it, despite stressing that he has no personal desire to do so.

He has frequently taken aim at the Democrats since Harris’ resounding election defeat in November, accusing them of focusing too much on talking down Trump than making their own case.