➡ The speaker discusses their belief that Stephen A. Smith, a sports commentator, may secretly support Republican views but won’t admit it to avoid upsetting his audience. They suggest that Smith criticizes Democrats to avoid openly supporting Trump, and labels himself as an independent to avoid choosing a side. The speaker criticizes this approach, arguing that being independent today often means avoiding commitment to a political stance to prevent backlash from one’s audience.

➡ He doesn’t choose sides among his friends in the Charlemagne’s because he doesn’t want to upset anyone. This is a wise move for someone who is a well-known public figure and earns a lot of money.

Steven A. Smith pulled up on Fox News and he had some things to say about the Democratic Party. Let me share that with y’all real quick. Steven A. Smith. I think that Steven A. Smith is really trying to get into, he’s trying to, he’s done really well with his platform on YouTube but I think he’s trying to be more like Shannon Sharp but in a political space. I think that he wants a bigger bag. I think that he wants to do kind of like a Ryan Seacrest hosting multiple different shows and he’s trying to become a mogul and I’m not mad at it but one of the things that I am a little bit bothered about is Steven A.

Smith’s takes on politics. I think that he really really needs to do better. Again, make sure you tap into the Patreon link is in the description as well as been to the top of the chat. Check out what Steven A. Smith had to say about the Democratic Party. Steven A. Smith, my friend, look at, lookie, lookie, lookie here. You’re now tied with Pothole Pete, AOC, Gretchen Whitmer, and only Gavin Newsom and the Maryland Governor. I told you, I told you, who will be the Democratic nominee? What did I say? I said that Gavin Newsom was basically positioned in himself to at some point run for president of the United States of America and I absolutely believe that he’s going to try to do so.

Obviously, we got Shapiro, AOC, you got Kamala Harris over there. I think that all of those people and you got Gretchen Whitmer, who was the Democratic Governor of Michigan, all of these people are going to be vying for a seat to be the Democratic President of the United States of America. They’re probably going to try to go with Gavin Newsom to be honest with you and that’s why he’s getting all the press. He’s trying to be very very visible. Hey, I’m going to help with homelessness. Let’s do the clean sweep. Let’s make sure that we get ourselves some good press and then the wildfires happen and he started getting bad press again.

And Josh Shapiro have better odds than you do. You have a higher favorability than Pritzker, Andy Bashir, Kamala Harris, Michelle Obama, Raphael Warnock, John Fetterman, Mark Cuban. Good. Okay, no ducking, no dodging, no bobbing and weaving. Are you thinking about running for president? No, I am not. Number one, all right. I like my life. I like my life. My life is very very good, very fruitful. Politics is a cesspool. We’ve all seen that. We’ve seen what these politicians have gone through. We’ve seen what President Trump went through over these last several years.

Who the hell would want to sign up for that? Now, obviously being in the presidency is a very very powerful and influential position, leader of the free world. We get all of that. We look at the state of this country. It’s an absolute mess. You understand? I have no business being ahead of Josh Shapiro, but this is the part and this is the part that I really really want to get to, to show how pathetic of a state of affairs things are right now. I have no business being ahead of Josh Shapiro.

I have no business being ahead of Westmore. I love both of those guys. I think those guys would be outstanding in their own right. I don’t think that there’s anybody else up out on that list and beyond that has any legitimate case to make for themselves at this particular moment in time for the Democratic Party. I think any voice that has been national has been diluted because of the Trump romp and I don’t want to hear about a one and a half percent victory in the election. The man won every swing state.

He won about 50 counties, okay. He went up in the black vote, went up in the Latino vote, went up with young voters, okay. Did Trump go up in the black vote? Somebody tell me inside of the chat. I don’t know if that’s true. I know he had more staunch, ardent supporters in the black community. Y’all say yes, yes, yes, and men. Yes and men. So what was, what did men vote for in 2000? Okay, so let me see this. I got to look it up. Center for research. We’ll get to that in a minute.

Let’s go back to Steven A. Smith. I have no business being on that list whatsoever. I am not qualified, but it just shows how pathetic things are at this particular moment in time. I got to go deeper in the paint. I’ll use the sports analogy with you. Sure. Okay. If asked, if drafted, if begged, the answer under all circumstances is a firm no, you’re not doing it. Yes or no. At this moment in time, because I, at this moment in time, because I want my pockets to get significantly deeper. No, no, no, no, no, no.

I’m answering the question. I’m answering the question right now, right now. The answer would be no. Three years from now, if my pockets are significantly deeper and the country is in a dire state of, you sound like a politician. That’s a political answer. That’s a politician’s answer. Listen, I spent the first half hour of this show watching you and all your guests just warning over the presidency. Let me see something really quickly. Check this out. In Obama’s first presidential campaign, 95% of black male voters and 96% of black women voters. Why did I keep doing that? 96% of black women voters for Obama’s 2012 reelection on a figure for black men slit the 87%.

So we went from 95% to 87%. In 2016, when nominee Hillary Clinton, black men dropped further to 82% from 87% while black women’s support for Clinton remained high at 94%. So black women, y’all are going to be the 93, 94, 95, 96, 97%. Y’all are going to be in the upper 90th percentile no matter what for Democrats. So we already know how y’all are going to vote. Biden came close to matching that this year with 91% of black women. This is in 2020 that this came out. November 4th, 2020. Few groups appear to have driven a shift towards President Donald Trump among men.

Over half of black men, 52% will identify as ideologically conservative, cast their vote for president. Yeah, but that’s, and one in black men, one in three black men living in the Midwest also voted for him. So we did turn up more for Trump. No, no, no, no, we went down because 77% of black men actually voted for Kamala Harris this time around. So what are y’all talking about? This is in 2020. Am I off here? Am I off here? If 77% of black men voted for Trump or voted for Biden this year and 23% voted for Trump, where did I miss something? So actually, we came out more for Kamala Harris than we did for Trump in 2020.

This is 2020. So I’m way off. I’m way off. How am I way off? How am I way off? Let me get in a word here. I’m telling you, three years from now, as my pockets are deeper and I’m even more successful and my lifestyle is comfortable enough for me. So the door is open. The door is open. I would have to consider it. I would have to consider it. So the answer is you are leaving that, you’re swung it wide open, as wide as you can. You just kicked it open, knocked it down the same at this.

Yes, it is true. Well, three years from now, my pocket seat, you know, I have more money. I might be open to it. Campaning is a nightmare, hugging, kissing babies, shaking hands with everybody, carrying favor with politicians. I don’t want that. Now, if you told me I could get on a presidential debate, I could get on a stage for a presidential debate. I would love it. I would absolutely possibly love it. And I do believe I would love to debate you. I do believe that I would have. Well, listen, the fact of the matter is most people in the Republican party even can’t debate you.

So don’t get me started with everybody else. There’s no shame in that. I’m just telling you, going up against them, I’d give them a run for their money. All right. And I admire our friendship, et cetera, et cetera. Look, I asked this of Don Jr. This is a serious question, too. I mean, you just heard the Nazi fascist Tim Walz. Oh, but I didn’t mean Donald Trump. He’s full of crap. I throw the challenge flag. I don’t believe him. And that’s part of his problem, too. They lie, lie, lie. I’m sick of liars. But here’s the thing.

Nazi fascist, racist. And then they become the party of men, the right champion, the right of men to play women’s sports. They became the party that cares more about the rights of illegals over the safety of Americans. They become the party that is not outraged when the average American does not get paid what we get paid. They get paid what we used to get paid in our lives when we live paycheck to paycheck. 66 grand a year. I started in broadcasting. I got paid nothing. Then I got paid 19 grand a year. But those people and they see hundreds of billions of their hard-earned dollars going abroad for a Green New Deal, DEI, transgender, wokeism.

That’s the party. That is your party. You should leave them. You should tonight divorce them on my show. Well, first of all, I wouldn’t have to, because if I was the leader of the party, that nonsense wouldn’t exist. That wokeism and identity politics and all of that stuff, it wouldn’t exist. I’d eradicate that. Let me be very, very clear about that. Excuse me, because again, there are some liberal things that I agree with and there’s some conservative things that I agree with. Let me tell you, I think the argument that way, I think the Democrats are really, really messing up when it comes to Donald Trump at this particular moment in time.

Sean, I will openly confess, you know, Elon Musk is, you know, he’s not born here and they’re making this argument. He’s not an elected official. He hasn’t been confirmed by the Senate at all. Let me explain something. I get the discomfort. What they’re missing is that you messed up things so badly over the last several years. Give the man a chance to see what he does. I’m looking at Donald Trump. I’m not comfortable with everything that I’m seeing. I’m not comfortable with everything that he’s doing, like you are, but the flip side to it is that I’m willing to see the results before I engage in condemnation.

See, that’s the problem. The partisanship, they’re already showing it and they’re echoing exactly what they were doing during the campaign, which means they’re not going to resonate and they’re going to ensure that the Republicans probably win the midterms and then they get four more years come 2028 because the same song and dance with the same argument is not going to cut the mustard. They got to learn to do that. Judge the man on what he’s doing right now. See what the results are before you engage in condemnation. They’re not doing that.

They’re sounding like they’re still on the campaign, which means they’re coming across as tone deaf to voters like myself and various others. That’s where they’re messing up. Stephen A. Smith want to be a Republican so bad, in my opinion. Ashley said he’s an undercover Republican. No, no, I don’t think he’s undercover. I think that he wants to be a Republican, but he doesn’t want to upset his core demographic of people that may or may not support him. I don’t think that he wants to align with people like Jason Whitlock, who obviously is clearly a Republican, right? I don’t think that he wants to be labeled as a sellout.

Stephen A. Smith, for all intents and purposes, which it is confusing to me because I see the grift that he’s trying to have, right? He’s trying to transition himself to be more than just sports. That’s what Stephen A. Smith is trying to do. He’s trying to diversify himself. He’s trying to diversify his platform. He’s trying to get ahead of and also show his worth, his value, his weight to ESPN, which is a Disney owned liberal media platform. He’s trying to show his work to that platform while at the same time transitioning into more money, more opportunity, more visibility, trying to get into that, right? But at the same time, he can’t alienate the core demographic of people that rock with him, such as black people.

And so he may be a closet Republican in his beliefs, but he’ll never stand on business, which I’m going to be honest with you. We can criticize them all you want, but Stephen A. Smith is about a bag. He don’t care nothing about that. Stephen A. Smith is never going to completely say, hey, listen, I like Trump. I align with him because he does not want to alienate his core demographic of people that really support him and really rock with him. Regardless of whether you like him or not, they still rock with him because he hasn’t completely sold out.

The way he’s spinning it right now is, man, the Democrats are so bad. We got to hold them accountable because they’re not really stepping up to the plate. They’re not showing themselves to be worthy of our vote and all of this other type of stuff. Man, I could beat them if I really wanted to. He’s not going to come out and say, yeah, man, Trump is really great. I like the job that he’s doing. It really helps the United States of America. I stand for it. I don’t run in the victim Olympics. It more or less aligns with my brand as far as working hard and getting to it.

And it doesn’t really matter who get fired on that end. I’m running up a bag over here. He’s not going to say that. He’ll never, ever say it. The way he’s going to frame it is, I can’t believe y’all let Trump run over y’all. I can’t believe that y’all continue. Man, where are the Democrats? We need better democratic leadership. On the flip side, you’ll have people like me. And I’ll say, you know what? I’m never going to be a part of the Democratic plantation. And so he’s going to play the middle of the role.

He’s going to play safe. He’s going to say, I’m an independent. There’s this. In my personal opinion, somebody saying they’re independent basically means I don’t want to pick a side. Not because they’re open to if this person is right or if this person has the best policies. You know what the policies are and you know that the policies aren’t going to change from party to party. There’s never going to be a Democrat that comes in and embraces conservative views. There’s never going to be a Republican that comes in and embraces liberal views.

The only thing, the closest thing you’re going to get is a rhino, a Republican in a name only, but there was already a liberal. They just running on a Republican platform because they know that they’ll never get in the office unless they designate themselves as that. But somebody today, independent used to truly mean that you cared about. You were more informed. You were more ingrained in what was going on in politics. You probably embraced Jill Stein or the Green Party or something like that. That’s what independent used to be. Ross Perot, that type of framework.

Independence used to truly be when it wasn’t such a huge divide and a push far left and push far right. Independence truly were independent. Independence today means I don’t want to pick a side, but behind the scenes I’m truly conservative. I don’t want to pick a side behind the scenes. I’m truly liberal. Independence today are just chameleons. Now I’m not saying that Jill Stein isn’t independent. I’m saying that they research more than just a Republican or Democratic party. They’ll be open to a Jill Stein. They’ll be open to a RFK jr.

They’ll be open to other people outside of the party. They’re more familiar with other people than politics just outside of just the most visible Democrats or the most visible Republicans. Independence today, they don’t have a backbone. You understand what I’m saying? They don’t have a backbone. Now they just don’t want to be canceled because they may align with a different party than the core demographic that support them. So if all of the liberals, if the majority of the liberals and the people that support you on your platform is liberal, but you don’t want to say I’m Republican, you then say you’re independent because you don’t understand why the Democrats can’t get their lives together.

If all of the Republicans and your core demographic is that and you really closely align with this black woman because you are blackety black, but your core demographic in an environment that you exist in requires for you to cater to this demographic of people, you’re going to say you’re independent because you don’t want to have to pick a side. You don’t want to answer that question. The easiest way to get out of picking a side is to say I’m independent. You can’t say, well, I don’t want to talk about that because people don’t automatically assume.

Now in content today, you have to give an answer. And listen, if you are a visible public figure, and even if you are a person that don’t want to get into a conversation with people in real life, you say that you’re independent in order to be able to avoid the question because you can’t say, well, I don’t vote because people won’t criticize you for that. You can’t say, well, you know what I’m saying? You got to pick a side. So they pick independence. It’s the easiest way to go. And that’s not saying that a lot of people aren’t truly independent.

What I am saying is that Stephen A is an example of a person that’s not independent. He’s actually a Republican. He actually supports conservative views. He probably voted for Trump, but he doesn’t want to say that to the people. So he’s always going to say, I’m independent because all of his friends in the Charlemagne’s and all of those people, they are liberal and he don’t want to pick a side because he don’t want to alienate anybody, which is smart for a person that’s a visible public figure that make a lot of money.

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