Stephen A. Smith Speaks To CNN's Jake Tapper About Potential 2028 Presidential Campaign

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On Sunday, sports analyst and television personality Stephen A. Smith spoke to CNN's Jake Tapper about a potential presidential campaign.

Transcript

00:00What was your reaction when he said that the other night?

00:05I was aghast, to be quite honest with you.

00:07I wasn't looking for any kind of endorsement from anybody, especially him.

00:11But he is the president of the United States.

00:13There's a bit of flattery that comes with getting such words from the man who holds the highest office in the land,

00:19and I can appreciate that.

00:20But in the same breath, I'm saying to myself, you know what, evidently I'd have no chance

00:25because if somebody like that is throwing out my name, clearly they'd think that, yeah, go ahead and do it so we can beat you.

00:31We can romp you, too.

00:32So I'm not falling for it.

00:33It was nice.

00:34It was nice to hear, and I appreciated it.

00:36But obviously, it is what it is.

00:38I hear where he's coming from, but I wasn't thinking about it any more seriously than that.

00:44President Trump's been in office now for more than 100 days.

00:48What's been your reaction to his administration so far?

00:53I think it's been a bit haphazard.

00:54That's something I've been on the record as saying.

00:57Certainly, we understand that waste, fraud, and all of that stuff needs to be addressed,

01:01but the manner in which he went about it with Elon Musk gave me cause to pause with Doge,

01:06so I certainly wasn't happy about that.

01:08The tariff wars, I thought he was going to focus first on lowering taxes.

01:11That's what I would have liked to have seen, because that was something that he campaigned on,

01:15even though he campaigned on tariffs a lot as well.

01:17I certainly expected him to—I would have liked, rather, to see him focus more on lowering taxes first

01:23as opposed to engaging in a tariff war, particularly a tariff war that didn't just include China,

01:28but practically everybody else, at least for a short period of time before folks got in his ears

01:33and got him to sort of retract a little bit.

01:36So I see that.

01:37I have no problem with what he's done with the borders.

01:39I thought it was absolutely necessary, so I definitely think that that was a plus,

01:43because I was never a proponent of open borders.

01:45But outside of that, I take a wait-and-see approach, because, you know, history has taught me

01:51that the prism of history is how you determine the success of a president as opposed to looking

01:56at things in the moment in real time, because usually that's going to garner extreme reactions

02:01one way or the other, and I try not to lean in either direction of the extreme.

02:06I'm a centrist and a moderate at heart, and I try to make sure I'm as balanced in my thinking

02:11as I possibly can be.

02:12If you were to run for president, though, it would be as a Democrat or no?

02:18You know what? I'm an independent. I'm a registered independent.

02:21I would lean at who leans left. I'm fiscally conservative when it comes to my money.

02:26I'm socially liberal. I'm liberal when it comes to social issues pretty much across the board.

02:31I believe in living and let living. So I'm a moderate, and I would say if I had to run,

02:35it would be as a Democrat, but I'm not happy with the Democratic Party.

02:39So the Democratic Party is presently constructed. It would pretty much need to be purged in order

02:44for me to assume that I would want to be associated with them and I would garner their support,

02:50because I don't like the way they've gone about doing a lot of things for a very, very

02:54long period of time. And I think that I don't view Donald Trump as winning the election.

02:58I view the Democrats as losing the election, as absolutely positively blowing it with some

03:04of their actions. And that's why I think that, you know, again, if somebody was to associate me

03:09with that, the party has presently constructed where Lee's so extremely left, or at least

03:14has spent the vast majority of time doing that, oh, that is not something that I would vibe with

03:18at all. I would definitely be looking to be a game changer in that regard.

03:22What are some of the things that Democrats have been doing that have turned you off and

03:27that make you say the party needs to be purged? Who needs to be purged from it, first of all?

03:31Do you have any names? Well, I'm not going to name names. I'm not going to do that to a lot

03:37of people. But we know who the extreme left is. We know how they go about operating.

03:42We know what we lean towards when it came to open borders. We know that the spending was

03:48excessive, even though it's excessive on the Republican side as well. I think a $37 trillion

03:52budget, when Republicans try to act like it's just the Democrats, that's not true. But the

03:57Democrats certainly shouldn't be absolved from blame in that regard, certainly with identity

04:01politics, woke culture, cancer culture. I thought that that was something that ravaged our nation

04:06psychologically, because you had people literally scared they were going to lose their jobs if

04:10they pronounced the wrong pronoun for crying out loud. It got that bad. And I think that that's

04:16one of the reasons that Donald Trump is in office today, because so much stuff, a lot is focused

04:22on the individual, as opposed to actual policies itself. I'm talking about what they preached and

04:27what they talked to the American people about more so than what they're doing. The kind of messages

04:32that they were disseminating was incredibly uncomfortable to listen to and to hear. And

04:36I thought that it wasn't emblematic of what most Americans are thinking about. They're trying

04:41to pay their mortgages, rent, buy food and groceries, pay gas, and deal with the prices, you know,

04:47the cost of living. And they want safety in the streets. That's primarily what most American

04:52citizens are about, trying to live in peace and harmony. And that's not something that I think

04:56either side is promoted along the way.

04:58You last month said that there are clearly other people more qualified to be president

05:02than you. So what do you say to somebody out there who's watching, who thinks you have

05:07no political experience, no foreign policy experience? You're a gifted TV sports commentator,

05:12without question. But are you really prepared to be president of the United States? How would

05:17you answer that?

05:18I would say they're absolutely right. I'm not prepared. I'm not qualified. I have no political

05:25history whatsoever. I've never been interested in politics a day in my life. How did I come

05:30to this conclusion where I've left the door open? I'll tell you how. Elected officials

05:35have come up to me. Folks in the streets of America come up to me every single day. Not

05:39only that, my own pastor, A.R. Bernard from Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn, New York,

05:44said to me, show respect to people who love and support you by leaving the door open, because

05:48you never know what God has planned for you or for us as a nation in the years to come. Just

05:53leave the door open. So that's what I did. I know that I have a voice, whether it's on

05:58ESPN, whether it's with the Stephen A. Smith show on YouTube and iHeartRadio or any place

06:04else that I go. I know that when I speak, millions upon millions of people hear me. One would surmise

06:09that they listen to some of the things that I say. And then I look at our politics. How

06:13worse can it get? Do you realize right now, and I'm saying this facetiously because I know

06:17that you do, Jake, doing what you do every single day. Do you realize that if you are an elected

06:22official, your real work is with the campaign? Once you get into office, literally, you can get

06:29away. I'm talking about the nation's capital specifically, not state and local politics,

06:32just the nation's capital. You realize that you can literally go on Capitol Hill and all your job

06:37is to do is to disagree with the other side. You don't even have to do anything else. Whatever the

06:41other side feels, you feel the opposite. That's not work. That's not going across the aisle. That's

06:47not maneuvering your way through the political terrain and really negotiating on behalf of your

06:52constituency and the American people. All we're doing is engaging in acrimony and hate. And as

06:59a result, the American citizens are suffering. So when I look at it from that standpoint,

07:02and I think the kind of impact that I could have as a centrist, as a moderate, as somebody who believes

07:08in being sensical and engaging in common sense, unfortunately, I believe that if I did take this

07:16very, very seriously and I moved forward and I decided that I wanted to be a politician, do I

07:21believe I could win? You're damn right. But it's by default. It's not because I'm the most qualified

07:26candidate in the world. It's because of the state of our politics in the nation's capital, the politicians

07:31that we're looking at, and the fact that we don't believe for one second that they are serving the

07:35interest of the American people, nor are they interested in it. People look at me and they

07:39know one thing. I would be interested in serving the American people and doing what's in the best

07:44interest of this country. That means you. That means me. That means the black community, the Hispanic

07:48community, the white community, everybody. Because if all of us are rife with chaos, all that's going to

07:53lead to is America's destruction. And why would we want to be a part of that? So, again, I'm not qualified.

07:58There are plenty of people that are qualified, more qualified to be at, practically everybody. But are you going

08:03to win? And are you going to be committed to doing what's in the best interest of America?

08:08I know I'm that kind of person. That much I will say for myself. I'm not interested in division. I'm

08:14interested in galvanizing. That's what I'm about. That's what I try to be about. And sometimes you do

08:18that by calling it like you see it. And that's certainly something that I have proven I would do.

08:25I'd call it like I see it. People wouldn't know that.

08:27100 percent. Stephen A. Smith, we'll have you back. Thank you so much. Good to see you. Thanks for getting up earlier.

08:32I know you're in California. Thank you.

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