‘I Ain’t Happy!’ Stephen A. Smith Tears Into Trump Admin After White House Dinner
Stephen A. Smith tore into President Donald Trump and his administration just days after sitting for dinner with the president, Bill Maher, and Kid Rock at the White House.
On his Straight Shooter show on Wednesday, Smith pushed back on critics who have questioned him going to the White House last week.
“It was not my meeting. The president had reached out to Bill Maher,” Smith said, adding that he was told by Maher that the comedian told the president he’d bring a “crazy leftist friend” for his second White House dinner.
Smith said the president accused him of being “nasty” and “mean” to him during the meeting.
“When he finally saw me, he accused me of being nasty and mean to him because obviously contrary to what some of you may want to recognize, I have been critical of this president. There’s a lot of things I don’t like,” he said.
Smith ran through a list of problems he has with the administration, from affordability to the Iran war:
I don’t like that we have an economy that says we’re at 4.2% unemployment, yet White folks are less than 4%, about 3.7%, and Black folks are over 7% on unemployment.
I don’t like affordability issues and how that’s been pervasive in our society as well. Some of his policies, I think and most others think, have stirred that on.
I don’t like the war with Iran. I don’t like the fact that it was never supposed to be a war, but then he had a war and it was supposed to be over but now he’s going off about 11 months and he’s telling folks, wait until after the election, things will get better. I don’t like the fact that Russia and Ukraine hasn’t been resolved.
During the four-hour-plus dinner, Smith advocated for HBCUs, or Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and said he brought up all of his issues with the administration.
Smith later declared he is not offering an apology to any of his critics.
“Let me tell y’all something. I’m not apologizing for this. You need to understand something. I don’t like what I’ve seen from this president. At all. Especially the second go round in the administration. The first administration, the economy was thriving before Covid hit,” he said.
Smith added, “We’re $40 trillion in debt, affordability is an issue, jobs have been lost, Black unemployment has risen, I ain’t happy about it. Not by a long shot.”
The sports broadcaster knocked his critics for questioning why he would choose to sit down and directly communicate with the president of the United States, even if it is someone he opposes.
“For those that felt like there’s no way on Earth that you should have spoken to the president of the United States, I’m like, have y’all lost y’all mind? Have you really lost your mind? I am no leader, some political figure in all of this, that’s not me,” Smith said.
Watch above via Straight Shooter with Stephen A. Smith.
Jason Cohen contributed to this report.
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