Stephen A. Smith
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Source: Aaron M. Sprecher / Getty / Stephen A. Smith
The internet is screaming at Stephen A. Smith that no one wants him to run for president.
Stephen A. Smith is growing increasingly bored with dropping sports hot takes and being mad at LeBron James.
He is now setting his sights on the world of politics, as he has been making appearances on Fox News, The View, and NewsNation to express his disdain for the current Democratic party and Republicans, especially Donald Trump.
Appearing on This Week on ABC, Smith told co-host Jonathan Karl that he is so fed up with Democrats that he has “no choice” but to consider a run for the White House.
“I have no choice, because I’ve had elected officials, and I’m not going to give their names, elected officials coming up to me. I’ve had folks who are pundits come up to me. I’ve had folks that got a lot of money, billionaires and others that have talked to me about exploratory committees and things of that nature. I’m not a politician. I’ve never had a desire to be a politician,” Smtih said.
Smith claims that numerous people are, including his pastor, have come up to him, suggesting that he should run.
“Here’s the reality: People, literally people, have walked up to me, including my own pastor, for crying out loud, who has said to me, ‘You don’t know what God has planned for you. At least show the respect to the people who believe in you, who respect you, who believe that you can make a difference in this country, to leave the door open for any possibilities some to three years down the line.’ And that’s what I’ve decided to do.”
https://x.com/RpsAgainstTrump/status/1911443893637230820
Sure Stephen.
Social Media Does Not Want Stephen A. Smith To Run For President
Following the segment, folks have hopped on X, formerly Twitter to ask WHO are these people telling screaming Stephen to run for president and to let the First Take host that no one with an ounce of common sense wants him to run for the highest office in the land.
“I’m at the gym where Fox News is on. The headline says “Stephen A. Smith leaves door open for a 2028 presidential bid.” My first reaction: Who? So I look him up,” one user on X wrote.
Author Dan Winslow wrote, “Dear @stephenasmith This country cannot afford another TV personality. Please save your BS for TV and radio.”
“If you vote for Stephen A Smith in an type of presidential race, somebody gotta shoot you in both hands dawg,” another post read.
Yeah, so basically, no, we don’t need a another loud mouth celebrity to be president.
https://x.com/2Strong2Silence/status/1911782352423911497
You can see more reactions from the gallery below.
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Source: Aaron M. Sprecher / Getty
In today’s episode of We Really Shouldn’t Even Bother With A 2025 Bingo Card, legendary sports broadcaster Stephen A. Smith (Yes, that Stephen A. Smith) appears to be considering a run for president in 2028.
After appearing at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas, during which the ESPN commentator spoke pretty extensively about the possibility of him running for president in four years, Smith took to X, posting, “Time to stop messing around. Life is great. Especially at ESPN/Disney. Hate the thought of being a politician. But sick of this mess. So I’m officially leaving all doors open.”
Now, when it comes to Smith, it’s often difficult to tell if he’s being serious or not. Like, come on, bro, there is no way you’re not just trolling America right now. There’s no conceivable world where a loud-mouthed hot-head who has no experience in governing and is really just a TV personality would be elected president of the United States. (I feel like I’m experiencing some major déjà vu right now — as if I had said something similar around 2016.)
But if the famed sports journalist, who recently signed a five-year, $100 million deal with ESPN, is simply pulling America’s leg and is not seriously considering a run for the White House, he hasn’t delivered the punchline yet, and, at any rate, there might actually be a significant number of Democratic voters who are actually entertaining the idea.
From Deadline:
Smith’s name has come up in the aftermath of the Democrats‘ defeat. On The View last month, Smith was asked about polls that showed him among the contenders. “I make of it that citizens, particularly on the left, are desperate,” he said. He voted for Kamala Harris but has been critical of the Democratic Party, appearing on Fox news and shows like Real Time with Bill Maher. Smith also has attacked Donald Trump, lately over the president’s across-the-board tariffs.
Of course, regardless of what a few wayward polls might be saying, the fine folks on X have responded to the proposition of a Stephen A. Smith presidency with a resounding “Hell no!”
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Source: Getty Images / LeBron James / Stephen A. Smith
The LeBron James versus Stephen A. Smith “beef” has become more comical.
In his 22 seasons, LeBron James has given all indications that he gives zero f***s and is clapping back at anyone who he feels did him or his family dirty or has some wild takes.
James has clearly grown tired of ESPN workhorse Stephen A. Smith constantly talking about him, but the final straw was the analyst talking about James’ firstborn son and now Los Angeles Lakers teammate Bronny James, which led to a now-infamous confrontation that Smith can’t seem to stop revisiting.
The Chosen One got Stephen A. Smith in his feelings again after he stopped by The Pat McAfee Show and addressed Smith’s behavior following the incident.
“He’s on a Taylor Swift tour run right now. It started off with ‘I didn’t wanna address it, but since the video came out, I have to,’” James told McAfee, explaining the ongoing beef with the sports pundit, who is now dipping his toes into politics.
James continued, “Never would I not allow people to criticize players about what they do on the court. That is your job. That’s all part of the game. But when you get personal with it it’s my job to not only protect my damn household but protect the players,” James says before imagining the pundit’s reaction to the clip. “He’s going to be smiling from ear to ear when he hears me talking about him. He’s gonna get home and get some ice ream out of the f-cking freezer and sit in his chair in tighty whiteys on the couch. Like, dude, relax.
Stephen A. Smith Says He Would Have “Swung On” James
Of course, Smith would have something to say on the matter, and he responded via his podcast, The Stephen A. Smith Show, where he spent the entire show blasting James, even claiming he would have “swung on” the professional hooper if things got physical.
He also added that he’s pretty sure he would have gotten his “ass kicked” by James if the two were to have thrown hands.
“When he approached me sitting courtside at that game against the New York Knicks, when he rolled up on me I didn’t know he was gonna roll up on me,” Smith said. “I had no idea, but when he said what he had to say I was in no position to give any kind of retort without making a scene. It was during the third quarter, it was fresh out of a timeout, it was him walking to the basketball court. It was on national television, the cameras were rolling and had I done something what do ya’ll want me to do? You want this to be a reincarnation of Chris Rock and Will Smith?”
“And let me state for the record while we bring up that, let me assure you it wouldn’t have gone down like that. I would have gotten my ass kicked because if that man put his hands on me I would’ve immediately swung on him. Immediately. That I’m not going to tolerate,” he continued.
Nobody Believes You, Stephen A. Smith
As expected, everyone is clowning Stephen A. Smith. LeBron James didn’t waste time responding via Instagram, sharing a video of Smith participating in boxing training and looking ridiculous.
James’ Cavaliers teammate, Kevin Love, even got in on the action.
LOL.
Stephen A. Smith is looking quite foolish. You can see more reactions in the gallery below.
It feels like almost as soon as Taylor Swift started dating Travis Kelce, the conversation turned to whether wedding bells were in the superstar couple’s future. Well, one person who’s never afraid to share his opinion has officially weighed in on the hot topic. ESPN personality Stephen A. Smith appeared on The Tonight Show Starring […]
One of the biggest moments of Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl LIX Halftime performance on Sunday night (Feb. 9) was when he called on his fellow Compton, Calif., native Serena Williams to crip walk onstage during “Not Like Us.”
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While many fans online loved the surprise cameo, Stephen A. Smith weighed in with his own take, taking aim at Williams’ husband, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. “If I’m your husband, I’m thinking, ‘Why are you up there trolling him, trolling your ex?’” the sports analyst began during his First Take podcast on Feb. 10. “If I’m married, and my wife is going to troll her ex, go back to his a–. Because clearly you don’t belong with me. What you worried about him for, and you with me? Bye!”
For context, Drake and Williams reportedly dated in 2015, and the rapper revealed that he wrote his 2016 hit “Too Good” about the athlete. The tennis champion’s appearance during the performance was widely speculated to be a dig at Drake — the famous subject of Lamar’s “Not Like Us” diss track. In 2022, Drake fired shots at Ohanian, rapping on “Middle of the Ocean”: “Sidebar, Serena, your husband a groupie/ He claim we don’t got a problem but no, boo, it’s like you comin’ for sushi/ We might pop up on ’em at will like Suzuki.”
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Co-host Ryan Clark then chimed in, adding, “If you with Serena Williams, you’re going to be a kept man anyway — don’t start that, you ain’t gonna run the house.”
Shannon Sharpe also added in defense of Ohanian, “I think he is doing pretty well. He founded Reddit and then he sold Reddit for a big chunk of change. I think he OK.”
Ohanian ended up responding to Smith’s thoughts on X. The entrepreneur, who was in attendance at the Super Bowl in New Orleans, replied to a tweet from the New York Post about Smith’s comments. “I got you @stephenasmith,” he wrote, linking to the inspiration behind Williams’ crip walk, which was the backlash she received for the dance at Wimbleton more than a decade ago and how the decision is “bigger than the music.”
“I know I should know better, but I continue to be surprised by full the spectrum of genius and stupidity in humanity,” Ohanian concluded.
See his responses below.
I know I should know better, but I continue to be surprised by full the spectrum of genius and stupidity in humanity.— Alexis Ohanian 🗽 (@alexisohanian) February 11, 2025
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Stephen A. Smith promised us that he would have more commentary regarding his insistence that Will Smith still owes “the Black community” an “explanation” for slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars in 2022. Now that he has heard the response of the Black community, most of whom told him to speak for himself and that Will doesn’t owe us anything, he is sharing those thoughts, but it really isn’t helping his case.
Seriously, maybe he should have kept this in the drafts.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever get over what Will Smith did to Chris Rock,” Smith began. “But that doesn’t mean I have to, and it doesn’t give me a license to negatively impact Will Smith.”
Now, Smith could have stopped right there, and all would have been fine. After all, it’s OK that he still hasn’t gotten over it, and it’s nice that he acknowledged that his personal inability to get over it doesn’t give him “license to negatively impact” Will, whose latest Bad Boys film has proven to be massively successful despite the controversy surrounding the Fresh Prince of Belair actor. (Although, really, Strephen does have every right to say what he has to say about Will regardless of whether or not it “negatively impacts” him, as we all have a right to our opinions.) But Where the sports analyst loses me is when he implies that Will owes Black people a special apology due to the impact of white racism.
“It was a blemish on all of us because I know how much white America reveres Will Smith and the thinking along the lines in my mind was, ‘Hell, if he did that, what would the rest of us do?’” Smith went on to to say after suggesting that the slap may have prevented Black director Antoine Fuqua from receiving an Oscar for Emancipation. “There are certain things that happen in the lives of an individual where those incidences are used as a license to castigate the rest of us.”
So, it appears that Stephen A. Smith isn’t so much bothered by what Will did to another Black man as much as he is afraid of the optics of it, which is to say he’s in fear of the white gaze. In Smith’s initial remarks, he speculated that Will “wouldn’t have smacked Ricky Gervais, Bill Maher, Bill Burr or a host of others.” While that may or may not be true, it’s definitely true that if Ricky Gervais had slapped Bill Maher on the Oscars stage, we wouldn’t be having a conversation about how it might negatively affect the careers of other white actors, comedians and directors. That’s not even a thought that would come up because that logic simply doesn’t apply to white people of any profession.
But Smith isn’t lecturing white people for allowing this glaring double standard to persist, and he certainly isn’t lecturing the myriad of white comedians and media personalities who went full fire and brimstone on Will after the slap but never have that same energy in response to the hideous anti-social behavior displayed by their fellow Caucasian celebrities. Instead, Stephen A. Smith is lecturing Will Smith about what he owes Black people for exacerbating the anti-Black racism of white people—much like Chris Rock did when he declared at the end of his “Selective Outrage” comedy special: “I got parents, and you know what my parents taught me: Don’t fight in front of white people.”
Besides the fact that Stephen (and probably Rock as well) is mad at the wrong thing and possibly the wrong person, maybe he should be dealing with his feelings about Will, the slap and his fear of the white gaze by working them out with a therapist instead of on national television.
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Stephen A. Smith offered his viewpoints on Will Smith just as the celebrated actor is enjoying some success due to the latest film in the Bad Boys franchise going number over the weekend. Stephen A. Smith, using his podcast platform, believes that Will Smith should address the Black community regarding the slapping incident involving Chris Rock at the Oscars, although it appears the community in question still loves The Fresh Prince.
Via an X reply from The Art of Dialogue page, a clip of Stephen A. Smith went wide with the host opening the clip saying that forgiveness aside, Will owes the Black community an explanation. Smith did go on to add that he doesn’t harbor any hatred towards the Philadelphia native and even said that conversations with Charlie Mack, a longtime friend of the rapper and actor, helped him see the light.
That said, Smith is committed to the idea that enough wasn’t done to ease the minds of the community and that Chris Rock is owed more than what he’s received. As most would know, apologies have long been issued for the Oscars slap, which were inspired by Rock making jokes about Jada Pinkett-Smith’s appearance.
It has been a long climb back to glory for Smith after largely staying out of the public eye before resurfacing and allowing himself to provide content and entertainment to his legion of fans. Alongside Martin Lawrence, the success of Bad Boys: Ride or Die has inspired some people to say it deserves the same sequel-heavy treatment as the Fast & Furious franchise.
Check out the video from Stephen A. Smith regarding the Chris Rock Oscars incident, along with reaction to this latest clip and more, below.
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Photo: Getty
2. He’s probably not the only person that feels this way but point made.
13. Now that needs addressing.
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The WNBA is enjoying increased media coverage due to big names from the current season’s draft class, including Angel Reese, Caitlin Clark, and more. Things got tense on the set of First Take, ESPN’s popular morning sports program after analyst Monica McNutt checked Stephen A. Smith on his WNBA coverage, or lack thereof.
Eagle-eye fans of First Take caught wind of the moment during the Monday (June 3) broadcast of First Take which had a segment on the WNBA with Stephen A. Smith, 56, having himself a self-congratulatory moment with Monica McNutt, 34, shutting it down as it happened.
Smith began with, “Who talks about the WNBA, who talks about women, who talks about women’s sports more than First Take?”
McNutt’s rebuttal was, “Stephen A., respectfully, with your platform, you could have been doing this three years ago if you wanted to.”
Things got tense after this as Smith reacted to McNutt’s jab in incredulous fashion and the two began talking over each other with Shannon Sharpe interjecting at some point. Show moderator Molly Qerim did her best to get the strong personalities of Smith and McNutt on the same page but seemed frustrated by the overtalking and arguing over the point.
McNutt’s words echo some of the frustration WNBA players and fans have expressed that the larger sports outlet has ignored the league for years until the new influx of young talent, who brought with them the NCAA fandom that the collegiate game grew over the past few years with the aforementioned Reese, Clark, and numerous stars undergoing their rookie campaigns in the W.
On X, formerly Twitter, fans reacted to Monica McNutt dressing down Stephen A. Smith and his WNBA coverage. Check out the replies below.
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Photo: Screengrab/ESPN
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ESPN host Stephen A. Smith is siding with Drake in his brewing rap beef with Kendrick Lamar in the latest Drink Champs episode.
It’s not an understatement to say that Stephen A. Smith, the host of ESPN’s First Take, is highly opinionated. So in his appearance as a guest on the Drink Champs podcast, the talkative media personality was asked for his take on who he’d pick in the burgeoning rap beef between Kendrick Lamar and Drake. “First of all, major props to both of them,” Smith began. “I’m gonna go with Drake because even though everybody knows Kendrick Lamar and knows how gifted he is, you got too many people periodically trying to come at Drake, and he’s always standing.”
The veteran sports journalist added, “I mean, he’s one of those dudes. It could be the look, it could be how he communicates, it could be his flavor—it could be anything. But Drake damn near seems impenetrable, and what I take from Drake is, I don’t hear too many people coming at Kendrick Lamar.” Smith finished his point by sympathizing with the Certified Lover Boy rapper, likening the constant scorn he gets to what Drake goes through. “But everybody always trying to come at Drake, and, obviously, I can relate to that,” he said.
Smith’s voice is the latest to chime in on the tension between Drake and Kendrick Lamar, which took on another level after J. Cole released his Might Delete Later project last Friday (April 5). It contained the track “7 Minute Drill,” which leveled serious jabs at Kendrick Lamar. The track was in response to the verse the To Pimp A Butterfly rapper delivered on “Like That” from Future and Metro Boomin’s recent album. Cole would later declare that the song didn’t sit right with him at his Dreamville Festival on Sunday (April 7) and offer up an apology on stage.
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If we’ve learned anything about Jay-Z over the years it’s that he isn’t one to play about his family whether it be immediate or business related. So when Stephen A. Smith threw a tad bit of shade at Rihanna’s Super Bowl Performance, Hova had a little something to say.
Recently, during a sit-down interview on the Connect The Dots podcast, the sports journalist icon revealed that when he implied that Rihanna’s 2023 Super Bowl Halftime performance couldn’t measure up to that of Beyoncé’s in 2016, not only did some celebrities take issue with his comments, but Jay himself chimed in when the two spoke on the phone.
Saying “people who will remain nameless” and “Hollywood stars,” Smith said people were so mad at him that they never spoke to him again. And it had him wondering what was so taboo about his opinion. Ultimately, things came to a head when Stephen A. spoke to the GOAT himself, Jay-Z.
Recalling a conversation the two had some time later, Smith said, “Months later, Hov and I were on the phone. Hov was like – simple and plain, ‘My dawg, you family, that’s family. That’s too close to say that.’ I said, ‘I didn’t know.’ He said, ‘I know.’ Done! In other words, it’s a business, it’s a part of it, you don’t know how she’ll receive it, etc. etc. etc. That’s all he had to say. I appreciated that.”
We don’t know much, but what we do know is that you do not want Jay-Z in your ear telling you how you F’d up. Either personally or in a business sense. Good thing he didn’t say the opposite and imply that Rihanna was superior to Beyoncé. Things could’ve gotten hella ugly. Just sayin’.
Check out Stephen A. Smith tell his side of the story below, and let us know your thoughts on the situation in the comments section.