What does it take to get a member of the MSM to praise a Fox News host?  Simple: trash Donald Trump. On yesterday's With All Due Respect, co-host John Heilemann declared "I have always like Shep Smith, and I like him more today than I've ever liked him before."

So what had Shep done to enhance Heilemann's fondness for him? On his show on Tuesday, during a dialogue with Wall Street Journal editor John Bussey, Smith tore Donald Trump, and his plan for Muslims, to shreds. Smith called the plan unlawful, unconstitutional, fear-mongering, racist and "crazy." He claimed Trump "lied" about Muslims cheering 9/11, and described the Donald as a "carnival huckster" who "represents the worst, darkest part of all that is America." Reading between the lines, you might suspect Shep doesn't like Trump very much.

In a tirade on Monday, Fox News anchor Shepard Smith dismissed legitimate security concerns in the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks as a “collective freak-out” that was potentially “dangerous.” He then proceeded to condemn anyone opposed to bringing thousands of Syrian refugees to the United States as “extreme forces within our own political system” that lead us “towards self-destruction.”

During live coverage of the Baltimore riots during the 5:00 p.m. ET hour on Monday, Fox News anchor Shepard Smith scolded and mocked hosts of The Five for daring to ask legitimate questions about the violence. "If we want to turn this, as a nation, into something that will rile up the races, then we can do that. But it seems prudent to listen to the two sides....you get to this point, where you get no answers for eight days after a man [Freddie Gray] died for looking at somebody – eight days later, people almost feel like they have a license to ill."

With thick, black smoke pouring out of the chimney of the Sistine Chapel indicating that the College of Cardinals had not elected a new pope on their first ballot, Fox News Channel's Shep Smith took to the air at 3:15 p.m. EDT to grill Catholic priest and Fox News contributor Fr. Jonathan Morris on the Catholic Church being out of touch with the modern world, particularly regarding how women cannot serve as priests.

While Morris defended Catholic orthodoxy and noted that there are some things -- such as the all-male priesthood -- which not even a pope could change, Smith objected that those notions grounded in 2,000-year-old Scripture were just, well, antiquated and irrelevant and that the Church should adapt to the ethos of the age (h/t @tomferrari on Twitter):

On Wednesday’s edition of Studio B w/ Shepard Smith, anchor Smith let slip his personal political views on same-sex marriage with some condescending remarks about how being pro-traditional marriage is an outdated notion.  Following the "official" announcement that Barack Obama now supports same-sex marriage, Smith opined that the President of the United States is "now in the 21st century," suggesting of course that the near half of Americans who support traditional marriage are somehow retrograde.

Smith’s true colors became more apparent in the hour during the first of two interviews he conducted with the host of Special Report, Bret Baier: