Stephen A. Smith held nothing back when responding to President Donald Trump’s attacks on him.
The prominent sports commentator, whom Trump once encouraged to run for president, has been in a back-and-forth with the president over his attendance at Game 3 of the NBA Finals between the New York Knicks and the San Antonio Spurs.
“Our president showed up to New York City last night. And needless to say, what I feared would happen ended up happening,” he said to the backdrop of patriotic music. “The New York Knicks lost, and obviously I’m blaming him.”
“Why am I blaming him, ladies and gentlemen? It’s very, very simple, because the president disrupted our mojo. I’ve said this on many occasions over the last 24 hours and I’m saying it again. The man messed things up,” Smith said.
The feud began when, ahead of the Knicks’ brutal loss to the Spurs, Smith said if the Knicks did lose, he was “blaming the president of the United States of America if the New York Knicks.”
He also called out Trump for “engaging in a level of narcissism that really rakes my freakin’ nerves” as his attendance closed several blocks near Madison Square Garden and prevented die-hard fans from holding a watch party.
In response to those comments, Trump called Smith “a nice guy,” but asserted, “you need a certain aptitude to run for president. You need a high IQ, I don’t really think Stephen A. Smith has that.” Trump himself had previously said Smith would make a good presidential nominee.
But in responding to Trump’s attacks on Tuesday, Smith, a native New Yorker and Knicks fan, spent nearly 10 minutes on his ESPN’s First Take laying into the president for several incidents surrounding the event.
He called Trump out for the chaos that his presence resulted in, including multiple street closures and extremely long security lines.
“Did you see traffic? Did you see the watch party outside of Madison Square Garden that wasn’t? Did you see thousands upon thousands of faithful New York Knicks fans that were forced to remove themselves from the area?” he said.
“Businesses that are accustomed to being patronized were compromised by you because you showed up,” Smith ranted. “The crowd that surrounded the Madison Square Garden and its surrounding areas, you comprised.”
He then attacked Trump for appearing to fall asleep during the game.
“And guess what he was doing during the game ladies and gentlemen? Go online, look at the videos. I’m not going to accuse him of snoring, because I wasn’t in earshot, but the brother wasn’t awake,” he said. “He wasn’t awake.”
“If it was that important for you to be there, why did you look like you were asleep? Didn’t you call out former President Joe Biden, ‘Sleepy Joe’? Well, what should we call you? Cause you weren’t awake,” he added.
“Meanwhile, the New York Knicks, a team you pretend to love… you turned your back on them. That’s what you did for your own selfish, narcissistic motives,” he continued, adding “And now the New York Knicks have to go back to San Antonio. Why? Because you got in the way for your own selfish motives.”
On Trump’s “low IQ” comments, an insult which the president typically reserves for only Black people he dislikes, Smith said those comments “really, really made me laugh” and revealed that Trump has been dodging him for over a year.
“You wanna talk about IQ, I could say I could put my IQ against yours any day of the week,but I could go one better,” he started.
“I could ask you why you’ve been running from me for the past year since I asked you to talk to me, I could ask you to debate me since you think you’re that dude,” he continued. “We could go a myriad of ways with all of this, but I am not going to let you off the hook.”
Smith then attacked Trump for the apparent overall vibe change that the president’s presence in the Garden brought to the team.
“This is a sports show, so I won’t go any further than to say that, other than to say [Jalen] Brunson played better when you weren’t there. Mikal Bridges played better when you weren’t there. Karl Anthony Towns played better when you weren’t there. Landry Shamet played better when you weren’t there,” Smith said.
“The crowd was festive, hyped, and more intimidating when you weren’t there,” He said, adding, “And this is what you’ve done. I thought you were a New Yorker Mr. President.”
“It’s clear you need your rest. Isn’t it? The Knicks need it too,” Smith concluded. “Give New Yorkers a break. Stay at the White House, go to Mar-a-Lago, go to Bedminster. Do whatever it is that you gotta do. Just stay the hell away from the New York Knicks for the rest of this series, pretty please with sugar on top.”
