Ed Schultz challenges Sean Hannity to Obamacare debate

MSNBC host Ed Schultz fired back at Fox News' Sean Hannity on Friday as the two continued to trade barbs, and Schultz challenged Hannity to a debate about the Affordable Care Act (ACA), accusing him of willfully spreading misinformation about the law out of spite for President Barack Obama -- and of ducking his invitation to discuss the issue.

"Hannity would sell his absolute soul to defeat President Obama and defeat Obamacare," Schultz charged. "And he puts no value on his journalistic integrity -- if he has any."

To illustrate his point, Schultz showed a clip of an Oct. 2013 group interview Hannity conducted with people saying the law would adversely affect them; the report was debunked by Salon, which found that not only had the participants refused to investigate the government health exchanges created by the ACA, but that they would save money under some of the plans they provided.

"Gosh, Sean, I thought you were a big free-market guy," Schultz said. "I thought you liked competition. Hannity seems to really want Americans to have crappy health care plans."

On his show Thursday, Hannity called Schultz a "suck-up" and accused him of having his "head up the you-know-what" of Obama in an interview with conservative media analyst Brent Bozell after Schultz for their incomplete reporting on the law's effects.

However, Schultz countered, Hannity had no room to call him a "suck-up" after his November 2010 interview with former President George W. Bush, in which Bush referred to Hannity as his "buddy."

"I'm just a fun-loving, barrel-chested guy from the middle of the country who loves getting to the bottom of stuff," Schultz said. "So let's get it on, Sean. Come on -- you pick the venue, you sell the tickets, you keep the profits. You're all about that. I just want to prove that you're wrong."

Watch Schultz call Hannity out, as aired on Friday, below.