Stephen A. Smith revealed during a surprisingly based interview with the “PBD Podcast” on Wednesday that he might be voting for a ton of Republicans.
“I’m the kind of person that might vote for the president being a Democrat and every other position Republican,” Smith told host Patrick Bet-David. “Every senator, every congressional figure, every local…” he continued.
He explained that, while he was still undecided on who he’d vote for in November, he was leaning towards Biden.
“I view the presidency … I understand it’s the commander-in-chief, I get it, but I view … and listen, I will preface it by saying I’m open to correction I truly am,” Smith said. “I view the presidency as more of a statesmanship position … if I interviewed Trump, I would look him in his face and tell him why I would never — ‘I’m not calling you a racist, I’m not saying that all of your policies were wrong — hell the economy was thriving before COVID, I remember. But you don’t know how to act.'”
“I’d say, ‘You don’t care what you say, you don’t care about how divisive you come across, you don’t have any sensitivity whatsoever to how you scared a living hell out of people with your rhetoric,'” he added.
Smith put his political flexibility on full display during the interview and was surprisingly complimentary toward a number of Republican figures. He praised Fox News’ Sean Hannity as a close personal friend and lauded his work ethic.
“I have never in my life encountered anyone in this business more consistent than him,” Smith said of Hannity. (RELATED: ‘How The Hell?’: Stephen A. Smith Goes On Extremely Based Rant About Eric Adams’ Migrant Pilot Program)
He later explained that Bill O’Reilly was a huge inspiration to him.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Stephen A. Smith attends a playoff basketball game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Golden State Warriors at Crypto.com Arena on May 08, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Allen Berezovsky/Getty Images)
“That’s where I get it from when you hear me say I’m number one every week, every month, every year. I got that from watching Bill O’Reilly because that’s the respect that I have for him igniting and basically defining the space that we’re now all living in,” Smith said. “See where no matter what you feel … I don’t know him personally, but I know it’s work and at the end of the day when people do good work you got to give props. You can’t you can’t sit around and hate.”
Stephen A. Smith On Why Democrats Are In Trouble
Smith also suggested that most black people are conservative in their values.
“When it comes to black folks, this is what I’ve known: most of us have conservative values, and we might go to the polls and vote Democrat because we’re sensitive to our communities. We’re sensitive to the plights of the desolate and the disenfranchised. We want to have a level of sensitivity to that. We certainly want folks to get equal opportunities,” he told Bet-David. (RELATED: Legendary Analyst Makes Easily Disprovable Claim About Black Coaches In The NFL)
NEW YORK, NEW YORK: Stephen A. Smith visits SiriusXM’s ‘The Howard Stern Show’ at SiriusXM Studio on January 23, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Cindy Ord/Getty Images for SiriusXM)
He then went explained that his mother was “a Democrat at the polls but a Republican at home.”
“You could see the issues that we have with immigration right now,” Smith said. “Oh my mother and father would be like, ‘Get you behind the back of the line like we had to. Who do you think you are?’ I mean that’s how folks act. Law enforcement during the whole social justice movement and you saw riots in the streets and stuff like that throwing up your hands to a police officer. My mother, my father would have looked at me and said ‘I hope they whipped your ass.'”
My mother would have been like, ‘If they throw you in jail, I won’t even come visit you.'” he continued. “She’s like, ‘The law is the law, you obey the law’… That’s what my mother taught me to be, and so because of that I would tell you: Democrat at the poll but conservative at home.”
Stephen. A Criticizes Biden And Democrats
Smith made a number of other shocking revelations, including his opinion that Don Lemon fumbled the Elon Musk interview and that the Democrats’ legal war against Donald Trump makes him feel “ashamed” of Democrats.
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“What’s all the lawfare about?” he asked Bet-David. “One charge after another, you got Letitia James … You’ve got the folks in Georgia with Fani Willis and others. You’ve got, you know, Mar-A-Lago situation. You got … I mean, we’re really, really, really going to have a trial about hush money to a former porn star? That’s what we doing? That’s what we doing now?”
NEW YORK, NEW YORK: American TV personality Stephen A. Smith reacts after throwing a ceremonial first pitch before the first inning of the game between the New York Yankees and the Toronto Blue Jays at Yankee Stadium on September 21, 2023 in the Bronx borough of New York City. (Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images)
“I’m like are you kidding me?” Smith added. “Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating that anybody should be above the law at any time. What I am saying is he’s the president of the United States, the former president of the United States. You talk to us about Russian collusion, you talk to us about a a bevy of things over the years. Man is still running … four indictments, 91 counts and the man gets more campaign dollars, climbing in the polls, okay? And last time I checked he still ain’t been in cuffs, he still ain’t been put behind bars and he’s the presumptive GOP nominee.”
“You can’t stop him. You cannot stop him, and so for me I find my myself ashamed of the Democratic Party for their lack of a competitive fervor. You had since 2016 to come up with somebody else and you still can’t do it,” he ranted to PBD. “That is pathetic. It is pathetic and there is no excuse for it whatsoever. It is 2024. In eight years you should have been able to find somebody that can compete with this man other than a soon to be 82-year-old incumbent.” (RELATED: Documented Horndog Stephen A. Smith Makes Ludicrous Statement)
Smith, who explained he’s always been interested in politics (he called the presidential debates his Super Bowl) has become increasingly outspoken on cultural and political issues in recent months. In the wake of ESPN’s hiring of the brash and loose-talking Pat McAfee, Smith has seemed to unfasten his safety harnesses and allowed himself to fully express his wide-ranging opinions.
And if this is the kind of real talk we can expect from him in the future, I say bring it on. This new Stephen A. Smith whips ass.