Diddy Pardon? Tapper’s Book BOMBS & Woke Culture BACKFIRES w/ Stephen A. Smith | PBD Podcast | Ep. 594

Summary

Podcast Summary: PBD Podcast | Ep. 594 Title: Diddy Pardon? Tapper’s Book BOMBS & Woke Culture BACKFIRES w/ Stephen A. Smith
Host: Patrick Bet-David
Guest: Stephen A. Smith
Release Date: June 4, 2025

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1. Introduction

In Episode 594 of the PBD Podcast, host Patrick Bet-David engages in a dynamic discussion with renowned sports commentator Stephen A. Smith. The episode delves into a variety of pressing topics, ranging from media credibility and political aspirations to the state of the WNBA and international conflicts.

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2. Stephen A. Smith's Career Updates

[01:21] Patrick Bet-David announces Stephen A. Smith's return to SiriusXM:

Stephen A. Smith: "Yeah, you know, does. I'm gonna be returning back to SiriusXM radio... leading into Mad Dog Sports Radio... and then at least once a week, in all likelihood on the POTUS channel, I'll have my own political show."

• Key Points:
  • Stephen A. Smith is resuming his role at SiriusXM with a daily sports show and a weekly political program.
  • His YouTube channel will continue to broadcast his political show, ensuring his content reaches a broader audience.

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3. Discussion on Jake Tapper's Book Performance

[06:41] The conversation shifts to Jake Tapper's recent book release and its underwhelming sales compared to other media figures.

Stephen A. Smith: "I think that... there's no way in hell. We believe that you just found that out after the election... we believe you knew it before the election and you didn't tell us."

• Key Points:
  • Jake Tapper's book sold 57,000 units in its first week, significantly fewer than Bob Woodward's "Fear Trump and the White House," which sold 1.1 million copies.
  • Stephen A. Smith critiques the book's lack of resonance due to Tapper's perceived lack of credibility, especially among Democrats.
  • The decline in Jake Tapper's CNN show viewership by 25% is attributed to the timing and content of his book release.

Notable Quote:

Stephen A. Smith ([07:00]): "Very few people write books to make money. You write a book because you want to say something. You want to have a legacy."

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4. Democratic and Republican Parties & 2028 Presidential Run

[12:48] Patrick Bet-David explores the potential for Stephen A. Smith to run for president in 2028, discussing the current political landscape.

Stephen A. Smith: "The only reason I say that is because I don't think that I'd have a snowball's chance in hell of running as a Republican."

• Key Points:
  • Stephen A. Smith expresses skepticism about his viability as a Republican candidate, citing stronger contenders like J.D. Vance and Ron DeSantis.
  • He considers running as a Democrat or possibly a third-party candidate if the opportunity arises.
  • Discussion on the declining appeal of the Democratic Party as the traditional party of the middle class and the Republican Party regaining that mantle.

Notable Quote:

Stephen A. Smith ([16:18]): "The only reason I say that is because I don't think that I'd have a snowball's chance in hell of running as a Republican."

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5. WNBA and Sports Discussions

[56:53] The conversation shifts to the WNBA, focusing on player Caitlin Clark and Brittney Griner.

Stephen A. Smith: "First things first. Respectfully, Brittney Griner was in a Russian prison... when she comes back to America on home soil would not have too much to complain about..."

• Key Points:
  • Stephen A. Smith defends Brittney Griner, highlighting her challenges after being imprisoned in Russia.
  • Discussion on Caitlin Clark's impact on WNBA viewership and ticket sales, especially following her injury.
  • Debate on the future of the WNBA, with differing opinions on its profitability and popularity.

Notable Quote:

Stephen A. Smith ([59:48]): "The girl is spectacular. It's not like she's... she's a star caliber player who draws this attention."

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6. Ukraine-Russia Conflict and International Politics

[93:46] The hosts discuss the escalating conflict between Ukraine and Russia, including recent bombings and international responses.

Stephen A. Smith: "Peace, even a ceasefire, are nowhere in sight."

• Key Points:
  • Analysis of Ukraine's recent offensive actions against Russia and the lack of progress towards peace negotiations.
  • Critique of U.S. political figures like Senator Blumenthal and Mike Pompeo for their roles and affiliations.
  • Concerns about the potential for World War III and the motivations of global adversaries like Putin.

Notable Quote:

Stephen A. Smith ([99:07]): "Nothing should come before country."

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7. Diddy Pardon Discussion

[129:15] The episode addresses the controversial topic of whether Donald Trump should pardon Diddy amidst his legal troubles.

Stephen A. Smith: "I don't want to hear about pardons from Trump based on who he likes or who's complimentary to him."

• Key Points:
  • Stephen A. Smith emphasizes that pardons should not be influenced by personal relationships or past favors.
  • Discussion on Diddy's legal issues, including allegations of sex trafficking and racketeering.
  • Arguments against the idea of pardoning Diddy, highlighting the severity of his alleged crimes.

Notable Quote:

Stephen A. Smith ([131:37]): "If you're gonna make a decision to pardon him, if you're Trump, it needs to be because you think that the case wasn't strong enough."

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8. Conclusion

The episode concludes with a reflection on the importance of integrity in both media and politics. Stephen A. Smith underscores his commitment to his community and the values he upholds, despite facing criticism and challenges.

Notable Closing Remarks:

Stephen A. Smith ([149:04]): "So that's how it goes. And I think that's what we're going to finish it on."

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Key Takeaways

• Media Credibility: Stephen A. Smith critiques media figures like Jake Tapper for lacking credibility and discusses the implications on viewership and public trust.

• Political Aspirations: Exploration of the potential for independent or Democratic candidacies in the 2028 presidential race, highlighting current political dynamics.

• Sports and Society: Discussions on the WNBA's challenges, player dynamics, and the broader impact of sports on societal issues.

• International Relations: Analysis of the ongoing Ukraine-Russia conflict, U.K.'s military readiness, and concerns over global stability.

• Justice and Ethics: Debates on presidential pardons, emphasizing that such decisions should be based on justice rather than personal relationships.

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This episode offers a comprehensive look into the intersection of media, politics, sports, and international affairs, providing listeners with insightful commentary and diverse perspectives from two influential figures.

Transcript

[Patrick Bet-David]

Did you ever think you would make it.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Adam?

[Patrick Bet-David]

What's your point? The future looks bright. My handshake is better than anything I.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Ever signed right here.

[Patrick Bet-David]

You are a one of one.

[Stephen A. Smith]

I don't think I said this.

[Patrick Bet-David]

So about a week and a half ago, we're doing a podcast and we have a friend of ours that reacts to Vinnie and says certain things about Vinnie. Rob, if you can play this, we just got to open it up with Go for it, Rob. Here's what Stephen A. Had to say about Vinnie. Go ahead, Rob.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Vinnie. Respectfully, specifically, on this particular topic, my name wrong. I don't give a shit what you give a shit. I'm a say it twice so we know that I wasn't stuttering. I don't give a what you give a. About.

[Patrick Bet-David]

You can pause it right there as if we have Stephen A. Smith in the house. How you doing?

[Stephen A. Smith]

I'm in here. What's up, Benny?

[Vinny]

What's up, baby?

[Stephen A. Smith]

Chilling. Just chilling. What's up y' all doing?

[Patrick Bet-David]

So a lot's happened since the last time we had you. We had you on, obviously. We've spoken many times. You got the contract, you got all this stuff going on. You know, you're. You're on the list ahead of Kamala Harris on some polls about running for President 2028.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Right.

[Patrick Bet-David]

I. And some big announcements being made today, apparently, which is. Which is big.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Yeah, you know, does. I'm gonna be returning back to SiriusXM radio.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Sick.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Congrats, Congrats. You know, thank you. I appreciate it. And I'm gonna be returning back to SiriusXM doing a sports show daily from 1 to 3pm on Mad Dog Sports Radio, leading into Mad dog and his 3 to 6pm drive time show. And then after that, my show will re air from 6 to 8pm and that's every weekday. And then at least once a week, in all likelihood on the POTUS channel, I'll have my own political show.

[Patrick Bet-David]

POTUS channel.

[Stephen A. Smith]

That's right.

[Patrick Bet-David]

That's exciting.

[Stephen A. Smith]

That'll be. I'll be doing my own political show on the POTUS channel. And that will, you know, from a video perspective, it'll be airing on my own YouTube channel, which will still live, which is on Stephen A. Smith Channel.

[Patrick Bet-David]

And I like the fact that it's three years because in three years, in case you decide to get applied for another job.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Yeah, yeah. Two months before the election.

[E]

Great timing.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Yeah, I like it. I love it. Listen, these are. These are the stories we're going to be going through. I got Some questions for you. We'll cover that. Obviously, a lot going on with Ukraine, the bombing, 40 Russian bombers, you know, yesterday. Right. And with all the stuff that's going on there, there's stories about Pompeo being in Ukraine. You got Lindsey Graham being in Ukraine, you got Blumenthal being a, you know, a lot of weird things going on. And so people are speculating. Vinny's got some thoughts on this. There's another story about LA City council passes budget that firms, police, fire, spending. And then you got this. Chris Cuomo shrugs off illegal immigrants murdering Americans as an artificial issue completely made up. Vinny's got some thoughts on it, but this is a friend of ours. Maybe we'll react to that as well. And then Trump awards first ever medals of sacrifice to fallen law enforcement officer. I don't know if he saw the reaction of the daughter of whose father did you see this? He's recognizing the daughter whose father passed away in the line of fire. And you should see the way she reacts and what she says afterwards. You have to watch this.

[Vinny]

Okay.

[Patrick Bet-David]

You've not seen this. You've not.

[Vinny]

Have not seen.

[Patrick Bet-David]

I am so glad you're going to react to this. It's such an interesting take, you know. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer moves UK military into war fighting readiness. Why? No one knows. That's NATO. We'll talk about that. Lawsuit accuses Zion of rape, Years of abuse. Again, we'll see what you have to say about that. Paris erupts in celebration riots after PSU wins championship League. Stephen A. Smith says Deion Sanders was devastated by Shador's 2025 NFL Draft slide. I'm actually curious to know, you know, what you know about that and how it went about because everybody was following the store to see what was going to happen. Everybody was surprised what happened there. But, you know, if there is a family that's a mentally tough family, it's these guys. I'm curious to know what your thoughts are on this then. World Boxing apologize for naming Olympic champion Iman Khalif in sex test policy that just recently came out. Yeah, and then you got, you said something about you don't like the idea of pardoning Diddy. Trump pardoning Diddy and 50 cents said some stuff on there will address that issue. Caitlin Clark. I really want to ask you about Caitlin Clark. Some numbers came out. I'm curious to know what you're going to say. Then we got the Jake Tapper situation. This guy went out there, you know, revealing what he knew about Biden and ever since he revealed that not only did the book flop, but his show was flopped, it's almost like the audience is sitting there saying, I don't believe you. I don't trust what you have to say. We'll talk about that. Anthony Edwards, look, you know, he said something in the interview. I know some of you guys maybe not be following basketball, but in the interview after they lost, they're like, so how do you feel right now? I'm 23 years old. I got a lot of playing to do. Sitting next to Connolly that's in his mid to late 30s, only got a couple of seasons left to play, hoping to get his first championship. I wonder what if. If you have anything on how to market his viewing. Anthony, Is he going to be the next face of the league? We'll talk about that inside the NBA with the whole being the ending of it, Barkley, all of that.

[Stephen A. Smith]

I'm just happy I know most of this, you know what I'm saying? Because he ain't like you. Get. It's not like you prepped me for the subjects we was gonna be tacking.

[Adam]

You're professional.

[Stephen A. Smith]

You say so.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Then I'll give you one that you know nothing about. Palantir. No, I'm not gonna anyways. But by the way, you know, before we get into it, did I saw you acting and I. Let me rob. Let's do this. For those of you that believe the future looks bright and you go to the gym and you want to sport the gear and be part of the community that represents future looks bright, here's a new gear that came out. Athletic wear of future looks bright with our models. And guess who's in it. Vinnie Rap going to play.

[Vinny]

The people don't give a shit about what I'm doing.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Okay. Five pound dumbbells.

[Adam]

Okay, Nati, the good camera work right there.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Second one right there is what you kids should have kept.

[Adam]

Natalia. Oh, great personality on that girl. There she goes. Sick gangster.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Looks good.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Yeah, we remember her. Yeah, we remember.

[Patrick Bet-David]

All right, go to place the order first.

[Stephen A. Smith]

100 from amnesia. And remember, that's the truth. It's just the truth.

[Patrick Bet-David]

I'm just talking vtmerch.com all right, let's get right into it. Couple stories here. Let's get right into it. Yeah, Natalia, you got a big shout out to start off. Let's get right into it. All right. First one I want to get into with you is Jake Tapper. All right.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Patrick Bet-David]

CNN star Jake Tapper squirms when asked how much money he's making from Biden cover up he took part in. So here's the interview. Rob, if you have a play this clip and then we're going to talk about some of the book sales, a bust, you know, what happened with it. And I'm curious to know what you have to say about this. Go ahead, Rob.

[Stephen A. Smith]

In terms of the left, it's a money grab.

[Vinny]

I mean that's not the case.

[Stephen A. Smith]

It's not, this is, I don't, I don't want to get into where my money comes from. But you know, CNN is my main job and that's where my main source of income by far. Very few people write books to make money. You write a book because you want to say something. You want to have a legacy, you.

[Vinny]

Want to uncover something.

[Stephen A. Smith]

You have a message you want to get out there. I don't think people write books about Joe Biden to make money. We are, we are gratified that people are buying this book. That's a good point. But I don't think, I mean the idea that I would do this for money is, is, it's just, it's silly and not true.

[Patrick Bet-David]

All right, so you can pause that. Who's this publisher for a guy like that? You get a multi seven figure deal. Jake Tapper doesn't get a small advance, he gets a big advance. Now here's the numbers when you look at what's going on and if, when he says I make most of, most of my money from cnn, he does make good amount of money from cnn. But the book, they did pay him very well. CNN pays him, I think 7 million a year is his 20, 24 contract. He's making roughly 7 million a year. So let's go through this on his book, how it did. Rob, what page do we have that on? Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

[E]

That is page 13.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Okay, let me go to page 13 to see how his book did. Okay, so here's some data on how the book did. Jake Tapper's book sales a bust rating dropped a decade low. Book original saying co author with Axios reporter Alex Thompson sold 57,000 units in its first week despite heavy promotion. A figure dwarfed by Bob Woodward's Fear Trump and the White house which sold 1.1 million copies in its first week as reported by publisher Simon and Schuster. The article notes Tapper's attempt to exonerate the regime media in the Democratic party for covering up former Biden's mental decline failed to resonate even with Democrats due to Tapper's lack of credibility. The lead with Jake Tapper on CNN saw a 25% viewership drop average in 525,000 total viewership from April 28 to May 25, the lowest since 2015. That is 10 years ago, capturing only 11% of the cable news audience share compared to MSNBC, 21%. Fox is 68%. Stephen A. What do you think went wrong here?

[Stephen A. Smith]

I think that when you see, first of all, it started with msnbc, let's call it what it is. Once Trump won the election, you should be pleased with what I'm about to say, Vinnie. Okay, Once Trump won the election, a message was sent. We heard everything that y' all had to say. We weren't buying it. But when you saw the reversal, the mea culpas, the Morning Joes, Going to Mar a Lago and others, we're like, see, nobody's hearing it. Feed into what you were saying about what we're not buying. And then, unlike the typical voter out there, you are, the news networks folks were relying upon you to deliver the goods. And when you come out with a book in the aftermath of the election saying that you interviewed nearly 200 people, almost all of them Democrats, and you talked about what you discovered, the reality is, is that the people that have turned against the network, the people that have turned against the news, the people that have turned against him, if that is indeed the case, it's easy to surmise that what they're saying is, there's no way in hell. We believe that you just found that out after the election. We believe you knew it before the election and you didn't tell us. Now, that's not me saying it. It's not you saying it. It's not, hell, it's not even Vinnie at this particular moment in time saying it. It's folks that were watching the viewer, the viewers who were watching you. Because what other explanation can there possibly be? If you're a leftist, and that's the kind of content that they were giving you on MSNBC or cnn, if you were watching this particular show or this particular host, why would you suddenly stop? You would stop because of the election. That's plausible. But months after the election, all of a sudden you notice a precipitous drop off. The drop off would have been in the immediate aftermath of the election, where, you know, it's November 5th. And now from that point forward, boom. But in this particular instance, according to the reports, the drop off came when the book came even more so. And because that's the reality, there's no other. There's nothing else to deduce from that.

[Patrick Bet-David]

So. Okay, let me ask you this other question for you. So let's compare you to Jake real quick. Okay. You. You got Bill Maher. I'll give a couple names. It's mainly you and Bill Maher. Let's put those two in the same category.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Sure.

[Patrick Bet-David]

And then let's put Jake and Acosta. Who else? You want to put a couple of these guys in this other category? All of you voted for the same person Pretty much. Okay.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Patrick Bet-David]

You didn't vote for Trump. You did not vote for Trump. Okay. What happened to your market where four months. Not four months, six months. It's been seven months since election November 5th. Right. Let's say seven months. So that's seven months. Seven months after the election, your viewership is skyrocketing. You just signed multimillion dollar deal with Disney, ESPN. You're getting your show going on your YouTube, on your. All over the place. You're on the list now, Rob. You can pull it up on Democratic candidates for 2028. Stephen A. Smith put it on the list. And you see now all of a sudden being talked about in a top. Top. What is the top four? I've seen multiple lists where you're number two, number three, number four. Some are saying you're 7%, 18%, 12% all over the place. Why did you all of a sudden spike and start gaining that credibility? Even though you voted for Kamala, you didn't vote for Trump? Why are some of these guys getting hammered?

[Stephen A. Smith]

Because I'm not perceived as being full of shit. That's why. See, I can argue with Vinnie. I can argue with you all day. I can. I can do that. But I'm telling you what I feel based on what I believe the issues are and what I believe we should be focused on. You know, Vinnie might be like, you talk about the borders. The borders matter to me. I was never for open borders, you understand? I'm about an economy. I'm about a strong national defense. I'm about those things. My issue against Trump was simply I don't like the way that he acts, and I don't trust that the polarizing figure that he is would ever be remotely interested in trying to bring us together. It was gonna be more division. Whereas I looked at a person like Kamala Harrison, I said to myself, it's not really about her. I believe a strong House and a strong Senate could compel her to operate across the aisle and get her to do some things. I might have been wrong in that thinking, but that's what I was thinking. You have others that if it's a msnbc, if it's a cnn, I'm just giving out those names because it's clear what they were doing. They leaned and tilted strongly to the left, and their objective clearly appeared to be to keep this man from regaining office. The difference between me and them is I would have looked you in the camera and told you exactly how I felt about them. And then when I started doing my reporting and interviewing somebody, I would have been right down the middle. And how I feel has nothing to do with doing my job. I could feel, yo, I don't like this dude. I'm not gonna vote for him. And I'm not saying that I didn't feel those things. I know you said. I said some things about Trump that I actually did not say. I've known Trump for years. We were cool Trump. We would go to his properties, watch boxing matches. We see him at the basketball games. You know, they heard people. I said, I don't like how he's acting. If he does something that I thought was racially insensitive, I would call that. Never called them racist, never compared them to Hitler, never called them a Nazi or anything like that. No, I knew this man. How you gonna turn around and then talk about him like that? My whole point is, I always said if I saw him in the face, I would look him in the face. Why are you doing this? Why are you acting this way? You know, you're ruffling feathers, you're being polarizing. Is that really necessary? Dammit, get it together. I would have said that to him to his face. So I'm on News Nation with Kovo, and everybody starts laughing because it's my turn to talk to him and. And he says, hey, Stephen, it's been a long time. And then all of a sudden, like, oh, they really do know each other. Yeah, because we used to talk all the time. So I've never talked about him like that. But my point is, even if I felt that way, I'm still gonna look in the camera and think about my obligation to my audience to be fair and as informed and as neutral as I possibly can in disseminating the information. You have too many people out there in our business that went away from the tenets of what our business is purportedly about, and they engaged in partisanship. You had people on the air hosting shows, literally trying to get him unelected or not reelected. You can't do that because once you've made that decision. I can't trust your reporting. And that is what I believe is happening. Fair or unfair to Jake Tapper, I'll leave that for somebody else to judge the Joy Reeves of the world and others.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Let me ask you this.

[Stephen A. Smith]

In the end, when you do that, you compromise yourself.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Is it 100% that in 2028 if you run, you will run as a Democrat?

[Stephen A. Smith]

The only reason I say that is because I don't think that I'd have a snowball's chance in hell of running as a Republican. I think J.D. vance, the Marco Rubio's of the world, even the Ron DeSantis of the world have that on lock. Number one. Number two, the party is not as in disarray is the Democratic Party. Number three, even though I'm a centrist and I'm a registered independent who would not hesitate, by the way, to vote, I would have voted for Nikki Haley. I would have voted for Nikki Haley. If Ron DeSantis hadn't pissed me off with the whole slavery, there's good parts about slavery comment, I might have voted for him. That was my issue with him, Trump, obviously it's his behavior more so than anything else. But I had no problem with the Nikki Haley. I'm friends with Governor Chris Christie, former governor of New Jersey. He and I talk all the time. I've known it. So I look at that and their party is not as much in disarray in my perfect world. To answer your question, if a third party had a chance of winning an election, that would be the way that I go because I don't like leaning far right or left. And I think both sides pull you dramatically in their direction.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Okay, so there's a, there's a poll that came out. Can you pull up the Harry Enton, whatever the video was that we watched today where he's showing, you know what happened with the Democratic Party, how you know, for since 1989, Democrats were always seen as the one for middle America. Look what happened. I don't know if you saw this poll or not.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Yes.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Have you seen this? Okay, go ahead and play this clip, Rod. Go for it. After all of the waves Cape Open. After the last few months, the first five months of the Donald Trump presidency. Right. Of the first four months of the Donald Trump presidency that you expect that Democrats have this massive lead on the economy. It ain't so.

[Stephen A. Smith]

It ain't so.

[Patrick Bet-David]

The party that is closest to your economic views. In November of 2023, it was the Republicans by 11 points. Now it's still within that range. Still within that margin. Go to the chart that shows for middle America. That's mainly what I want to. Keep going. Keep that. Go back a little bit. Go back a little bit. Go back a little bit. Go back. Okay, let them go from here. Watch this. Go for it. Key issue of the day, which is the party of the middle class has been a huge advantage for Democrats. I have polling from NBC going all the way back since 1989 when Democrats had a 23 point advantage. 2016, 17. But by this decade, we already started seeing declines. Back in 2022, where you saw that Democrats led, but only by 4 points, well within the margin of error. And now in our latest CNN poll, among registered voters, which is the party of the middle class, it is tied. This, I think, speaks to Democratic ills more than anything else. They have traditionally been the party of the middle class. No more. Donald Trump and the Republican Party have taken that mantle away. And now a king key advantage for Democrats historically has gone adios, amigos. And now there is no party that is the party of the middle class. Republicans have completely. Adam said it best. A billionaire has more support from the middle class than the other side. So here's my question for you, Stephen A. Yes, sir. So 2028, say you run. What. What are your top five values that you're running for in specific order?

[Stephen A. Smith]

Me personally, the economy is always number one.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Okay.

[Stephen A. Smith]

And if you don't mind, let me tell you a really, really quick story.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Sure.

[Stephen A. Smith]

So I grew up poor in the streets of New York City, fellas, Queens, New York, stuff like that. And I've never been able to afford a home. So in 2001, I buy my first home since South Jersey. I'm not thinking about some of these issues. You know, I'm just happy to get you to make a little paper. And, you know, I got a mortgage now and pay mortgage. And I could write off. I could write off my mortgage, write off my property, whatever, right? And this rap artist, I'm not gonna say his name was living in the neighborhood. He comes over to me. Oh, damn, Stephen. Hey. Cause I'm right for the. Philip, I read you all the time, man. I just saw you on Comcast. I love you, dog. I love you, man. Keep it up, man. Keep it up. And I looked at him and went like this. Yeah, man, I appreciate it, but are you gonna mow your grass? Because his grass was like. It was like a far. I mean, six feet high. You bring it down the neighborhood. I never once thought about somebody bringing down the neighborhood.

[Patrick Bet-David]

You literally remember that till today.

[Stephen A. Smith]

I'll never forget it because I was looking at it like I've never thought about it until I purchased a home. Once I purchased a home and they start talking about the neighborhood and property value and property taxes, I'm like this. That's not good for us. What are you doing? I'm saying to you is that the lesson that I peel from that is the more you have, the more you value, and the more you value, the more you pay attention to what value others place on things. And it provides a scope of how you should look at things. And as a owner, that's right. So the ownership and all that stuff. So as a result of that, the mentality is, think about the problems that we have throughout the streets of America and beyond. And if more had, more would be leery of messing it up. And as a result, folks would act better because they got something to lose. The real problem that we have in our society is they've got too many people with nothing to lose. And so that's how I view it. And that's why the economy would be number one. Okay? The economy would be number one. That puts the border at number two. Because the border, whether we want to admit it or not, could catastrophically affect an economy. When you think about California and their version of Medicaid, you understand, and how they've lost billions of their billions in a hole because they spent so much money in that they used Medicaid money to take care of illegal immigrants. Well, that's problematic because now you got problems in the state that you can't fix because you don't have the funds, because the funds that you did had you utilized for people who weren't American citizens. So I'm like, wait a minute. That drastically affects the economy. Can't forget that. Of course, number three on my list is safety. Safety in the streets of America. Let me tell you something right now. I hate to say this, because as a black man, we don't want the incarceration rate, the discrepancy that exists. We pay attention to that. We recognize issues like recidivism and stuff like that. We understand it all. But you think some of these GOP members, or even Trump himself is bad. You don't want me in office. Let me tell you something. You're gonna throw your ass in jail. Oh, you. You gonna be in jail. You ain't gonna be committing crimes and getting out the same day.

[Patrick Bet-David]

You.

[Stephen A. Smith]

That. That's not gonna happen. I'm not telling you that there isn't police brutality. I don't pay attention to it. And I'm not saying that.

[Patrick Bet-David]

So it would be Stephen Abel. Kelly.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Don'T get me wrong. You know, you're not going to be shooting unarmed black folks. You're not going to be shooting unarmed anybody. Okay? You're not going to be a rogue law enforcement official. But if you take a vow to protect and serve, and you live by that as a law enforcement official, you will have my support. We can throw your ass in jail. I don't want you killing anybody. But I don't mind you kicking a few people's ass. Because sometimes people do. Like when I saw the riots in the streets, one of my proudest moments was when I saw this kid, I think it was in Missouri. And he was out there protesting and throwing stuff at the police officer, whatever. And out of the crowd, you saw this woman come and just hit him with haymakers. And it was his mama. Yeah, it was a mama. What the hell are you doing?

[Patrick Bet-David]

Remember that?

[Stephen A. Smith]

That's my mother. God rest us. So that was my mother.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Respect.

[Stephen A. Smith]

You respect law enforcement. You obey law enforcement. You know, you get pulled over. There's been plenty of times that I've been pulled over and I didn't think I deserved it, you understand? But I also know I speed a lot. So this particular time, I wasn't speeding. Hell, they got me. All the times I got away with not getting stopped for speeding, right? What's the first thing I do? I roll all four windows down.

[Vinny]

Smart.

[Stephen A. Smith]

I put my hands on the steering wheel. Yes, sir. You understand? So you got your license, whatever. It's in my wallet. You got. Got your shirts. It's in my glove compartment. May I get it or I get it before they get there. And make sure all four winds. You're law enforcement. You can't be like. You remember the Tyreek Hill got into trouble.

[Adam]

I'm just gonna bring that.

[Stephen A. Smith]

I'm on the air. I'm on. Went like this. It was excessive what they did to him because of them noticing that he was no longer a threat. But I wanted to fast forward. I rather, rather wanted to rewind back to the initial process. The initial process was you wrote the police officer rolled up on you. You had your windows up. He specifically said to you, roll those windows down. And you made him wait. Oh, hell no. Inexcusable. And I'm thinking this like this. Kids out there, black, Hispanic, white, otherwise, do not follow that advice. When you roll. When the police roll up on you, if they pulled you over, obviously, they need you to roll down your windows. They shouldn't even have to ask for that. They should roll up to the window, and your window should be down. Now, if it's pouring, raining or something like that, damn it let you get under a bridge or something so you. You ain't soaking or whatever, but you don't do stuff like that. So those are the kind of things got the economy, we got immigration, we got safety in the streets, national security.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Okay?

[Stephen A. Smith]

You know what I'm saying? National security. I'm big on that. I like a strong military. I like peace through strength. I believe in that. Okay? And I would say I don't want to miss anything. So if I'm. If I'm wrong about this idea, but Foreign affairs matters because I'm not a nationalist. I'm more of a globalist. I'm a nationalist first. I don't mind America first. I don't like America only. I don't like us acting like we don't want to deal with anything from anywhere else. Like we're the only one with minerals, we're the only one with technology. We're the only one with anything. That's just not true. And so because of that, you know, be expansive, be as worldly as you possibly can be, have more allies than enemies.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Just so you know, none of these policies are policies of the land left.

[Stephen A. Smith]

I'm aware.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Four out of five.

[Stephen A. Smith]

I'm aware. But here's what you're missing. Here's what you're missing about me and what I keep saying about the Democratic Party.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Yeah.

[Stephen A. Smith]

The reason why I would never win is you would say, because you always tell me I'll never win because.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Not on the.

[Stephen A. Smith]

They would eat me alive. Right. What I'm saying to you is they're getting eaten alive. They're rotting before our very eyes. And what I would do, I would be on a mission to change the part.

[Patrick Bet-David]

They won't let you.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Okay, that's fine.

[Patrick Bet-David]

But you want to know why? Let me tell you why. And by the way, remember this. For us, you and I, we will have conversations all the time, and it's, you know, it's a very open conversation where you can call out channels all the time. It's respect. Respect the conversation.

[Adam]

Open board.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Let me explain to you why, though. Let me explain to you why, though. Here's why.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Patrick Bet-David]

My concern is. My concern is the Left. Look what they did to Bernie, okay? Look what they did to so many candidates that were about to beat them. And they come in and they say, no, it's not your turn. It's my turn. Right?

[Stephen A. Smith]

Right.

[Patrick Bet-David]

At least on the right there is. If you come in and you compete and you go, they'll allow you to compete and get your.

[Stephen A. Smith]

That's totally true.

[Patrick Bet-David]

The left will do whatever they can. Glenn Greenwald comes out and says something about, you know, he was on a podcast, but the next day they're dropping videos about him. You know, stuff that he's doing. My only concern is that. But even. Forget about that, because there's a part of it.

[Stephen A. Smith]

I don't want to forget about that.

[Patrick Bet-David]

No, I'm going to come back to that. But let me tell you what. Even. Even above that, you know, above that, for me, is if you give this message and only 30% of the Democratic Party resonates with this, you're not even going to get past a lot of these other guys. Because even when you watch right now, Jasmine Crockett. Right. Even when you watch right now AOC's position, even when you watch some of their positions on what they're doing. Right. Even when you watch what Gavin Newsom, you can. Well, I think Newsom is also. You're more reasonable. You're reasonable. You're not even more reasonable. You're reasonable to me. A person like you, if it comes to the Republican side and you run as a center. Right. Not as a right, like imagine like a Tulsi or a position like that. Right.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Kasich.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Like Kasich. Yeah. I think you would shine more than you could imagine. I think you would shine more than imagine, but also, I think you would have a shot at being a. You know, it would be. It would be a different kind of a brand that we've not seen before. Well, it's not gonna be something that we've seen before.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Let me. Let me confess to you that I was really, really hoping you didn't go there because I didn't want to answer this question, because I know what I'm going to say, but I'm going to say it because you're my man. Here's the deal. None of those candidates are me. Now, I have no desire. I just told y' all, I just signed with sxm. I got espn. I make some good money.

[Patrick Bet-David]

I'm not a good life you gotta take. He's a rich man.

[Stephen A. Smith]

The last time you're here. Smile before.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Well deserved. Well deserved.

[Adam]

You're living in the best city in the world.

[Vinny]

Miami.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Vinny]

Let's be honest.

[Adam]

You're living in Miami now.

[Stephen A. Smith]

The greatest ever in the game diverting away. I can't thank you enough. We talked about it. You know, he's one of the people that I confided in a lot during my negotiations, just in terms of his business acumen, his temperament, his mentality towards, you know, one step after another after another. There were very, very few people that I communicated with, and Patrick bet David was one of them. I cannot thank you enough for. From the bottom of my heart, I appreciate it. I will tell you the life that I'm living is good. But when you talk about those candidates, getting back to that discussion, none of them are me. Bernie Sanders, God bless him, I understand who he is. But he's also a socialist, essentially. That'll never work in America. Never, number one. Number two, three, and four, they can talk all they want to. They don't have my voice. What I mean by that is I'm not talking about you being well known. I'm not talking about you campaigning. I'm talking about what you do every day as a lift for a living. See, they gonna come to you when they campaigning. I'm around, period. This is what I do. So when you talk about a radio, you talk about a voice on radio? Well, I have that. You talk about a voice on television. I have that. You talk about your own pockets. Well, I have that. You say, where am I going? So anytime you try to attack, you have to think about the rebuttal I'm going to throw in your direction. And I think that I have proven throughout my career I can resemble a tsunami raining down upon your ass anytime I want to. And that's for sports figures. That's for people in social commentary. These are politicians. What a racket to attack. We got a $37 trillion deficit in this country. Okay, y' all had nothing to do with that. I did it. But you did. You talking about policies involving the border. I didn't have anything to do with that. You did. You talking about our economy and inflation ravaging us at that particular moment in time when Biden was in office. I didn't have anything to do with that. You did. The streets and crime going on in the streets and people getting off at times, not, you know, law enforcement being compromised, where you got police officers retiring. I didn't do that. You did that. When you talk about tens of millions of people that are either off health care, off Medicaid or Medicare. Right. And you're talking about those things because, again, Obama. Obamacare was essentially a tax. We keep forgetting that the Supreme Court ruled on that. That was a tax. Right. So you had that going on. And now that you're talking about veering away from that, which Trump obviously intends to do or whatever, when we look at the big beautiful deal and all of this other stuff coming down, you're talking about tens of millions of people that are going to end up off of health care. I didn't do that. Y' all did that. So you have a record to attack. I don't. So I look at them and I say, you really want some? Come get some. I'm not trying to run for office or anything like that, but I'm very confident that if I were to elect to, I would be formidable enough where I could get on that debate stage. And once that happened, I can only say this to you. I can't imagine any moment in my life that I would be, have or would have been more prepared for than I would for the debate stage for a presidential election. You might not see me for a couple of months. I would hunker down and I would master every issue imaginable and I would be more ready than I have ever been in my life just for that moment. That would be the super bowl for me. That would be a Game 7 of an NBA Finals or a World Series. That would be everything. And I believe that if the American people saw me and I was going up against those folks, what are you going to say to defend your actions? And as media members, you got to be careful how you come. Because if you're CNN or MSNBC and you have a preferred candidate, who would notice it quicker than me, if you're on the right same principle, who would notice it? These are the kind of things, because I know the industry, I know the executives in the industry. I know what they're thinking and how they're thinking. I know what maneuvers they'll practice. I kind of know this. So I'm like, I'm not into it like that. Cause I'm living a pretty good life. But they keep getting on my damn nerves. Who knows what I might do?

[Patrick Bet-David]

Yeah, I mean, I understand what you're saying. And you know, on stage, I think you'll shine on eyeballs and already a status of followership. You're ahead of everybody on that side. All of those things are fine. But there's an element of values and principles that right now, America is going more and more and more away from trusting the Democratic Party.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Right.

[Patrick Bet-David]

More and more away trusting anybody on the Democratic Party. For example, think about it this way. You're famous for saying what Weed. You know, when you do that thing, like, you are not for players smoking weed. How long have you been saying that?

[Stephen A. Smith]

Not for players losing their money smoking weed. One of my best friends is Snoop Dogg. Nobody smokes more weed than him. Nobody.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Yeah.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Okay. I've never once asked him to stop smoking weed. No.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Okay, so if right now we all start smoking weed right now, would you stay in this room? We all start smoking weed right now?

[Stephen A. Smith]

That's a tough question.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Because, first of all, we'd be laughing a lot harder.

[Stephen A. Smith]

I don't mind a contact high every now, and it doesn't bother me. I wouldn't join you, but I wouldn't mind. And it. Listen, we got a show to do. I got an obligation. I'm gonna do it now. If it got too strong for me, I might step up and leave, but I might try to do it.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Let me ask you a question.

[Stephen A. Smith]

As long as I ain't doing it.

[Patrick Bet-David]

How many days in a row could you do that? How many days in a row could you go with being around us with smoking weed? How many days? Let's just say your job, every day.

[Stephen A. Smith]

I wouldn't do that.

[Patrick Bet-David]

How many days would you do it?

[Stephen A. Smith]

Five.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Five days maybe. Eventually gonna be like, I don't know if I want this job. Okay, Right. So check this out. This is kind of where I'm going with this. You ever go on a vacation with a group of people and say to them, you've gone on vacation before the other two, you never have.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Right.

[Patrick Bet-David]

And the first day, like, hey, what's up, John? Hey, Mary. Hey, what's up, Jack? Hey, yo, what's up? You know, it's your buddy. And then, yeah, first day, it's kind of weird. Second day, I get. I get where you're going, but let me. Let me tell you where I'm going with this. All of a sudden, like, dude, I can't be around these guys for too long. We simply don't share common values. So would you consider yourself a manipulator?

[Stephen A. Smith]

No.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Would you consider yourself a persuader?

[Stephen A. Smith]

Yes.

[Patrick Bet-David]

How long can you be around manipulators and realize I am not willing to manipulate to get what I want? And you guys are.

[Stephen A. Smith]

That is a very fair question. Here's my answer. Not long. But my point is, I'd eviscerate them. I want you out. See, you can't say that that's impossible. When we've seen Trump pull off what was once deemed impossible. Sure, we know his past, his proclivities, and the kind of stuff that would normally not get somebody elected.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Right.

[Stephen A. Smith]

A Gary Hart, you know, didn't get elected, or John Edwards, for whatever reason, didn't get elected. Bill Clinton was in office, but had to go through being impeached and all of this other stuff because of the blue dress and the stains and all of. Come on now. I mean, we've seen it, and we never dreamed in our wildest dreams that somebody like Trump could ever get into the White House. That's why you have so many. There's. I think it was. Is it Anna Navarro that. Yes, that worked the View and cnn. I. What I remember most about her was her breaking out in extreme laughter at the thought that Trump could be president. Like, to me, you will never get. That will never erase from the minds of somebody who saw that because you were a political pundit. So the mentality is, we may not know better, but you were supposed to. You were supposed to at least know enough to know that he could be a threat. And she missed that. That could happen to me. That could happen to anybody. But it did happen to her. And so I think that there are people that hold that against her, not me, but I think there are people that hold it against her. I'm just simply saying, when you have a party that is acting the way that you say that you've highlighted, that is the way that you've highlighted, it's not working for them.

[Patrick Bet-David]

One big difference.

[Stephen A. Smith]

You would be absolutely right if the polls gave an indication that it's something close. They're plummeting before our eyes. The nation is telling you that what we've seen, they're sided with Vinnie. They're saying that. And so if that's the state of the Democratic Party, I think they're in a world of trouble. And who knows who could break through for them?

[Patrick Bet-David]

Okay, so here's the only difference. Here's the only difference. And then we can skip to the next topic to discuss other items. We've got other things to cover here.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Sure.

[Patrick Bet-David]

The difference with Trump when he came out is, you know, Americans wanted closed borders. Americans wanted. Wanted, you know, to make it safer. Americans wanted those strong values and principles to be taking place. Americans wanted that. Right. And Republicans wanted that.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Right.

[Patrick Bet-David]

And the party's like, who is this guy? And they're like, holy. Yeah, I'm with it. This makes sense. I want this guy. Right? And then, hey, we're sending all the bad people, the rapists and okay, great. So then they're like, that's what we're looking for today. Sesame Street Puts a tweet up for Pride Month. Okay. I want to show you this. So this is Sesame street. Their account has 1.8 million followers.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Yes.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Okay. On our street, everyone is welcome. Together, let's build a world where every person. Da, da, da, da. Okay, great. This right here, this tweet on an account with 1.8 million views. 1.8 million followers.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Okay?

[Patrick Bet-David]

How many likes do you think it got? You know, this is Twitter. This is X. How many? Just take a wild guess. How many retweets on likes do you think this got?

[Stephen A. Smith]

25,000.

[Patrick Bet-David]

25,000 retweets?

[Stephen A. Smith]

Yes.

[Patrick Bet-David]

How many likes you think?

[Stephen A. Smith]

I was thinking likes.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Okay, say 25,000. Can you show how many likes we got? Zoom in a little bit.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Oh, my Lord.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Exactly.

[Vinny]

Exactly, Stephen.

[Patrick Bet-David]

A 24.4 million 65 retweets. 440,000 likes. 19,000 comments. You don't stand for this. Okay? You don't. You don't stand for this. You're a parent. You don't stand for this. I don't want to speak on your behalf. You can challenge me and say, I don't. But I've heard you say on the woke stuff, I'm not with it. Okay, great. So imagine you're on the pulpit and you're saying, we have to put a stop to, you know, the woke. And then they're gonna be like, no, we don't want to put a stop to it. Well, no, we don't want to put a stop. That's the difference.

[Stephen A. Smith]

But there are differences. Like, for example, I was just recently talking to Megyn Kelly about this. I was talking to her about this recently. I'll say it to y' all. So you're a member of the LGBTQ community plus community. I'm all for civil rights, civil liberties. I don't think you should be bothered. I don't think you should be harassed. Live and let live. I'm for that. But I'm a black man, and one of the things that people miss is that black folks in America, we've had to accept coming out of the womb, whether it's right or not. This belief, you gotta do twice as good to get half as much. You're not gonna necessarily be liked by everybody, et cetera, et cetera. We were out for civil rights and civil liberties not to be liked. The society that we live in today, where they went too far, was trying to enforce embracement, not acceptance. You see the difference? It's like, wait a minute. It's not enough for you to say look, man, why are you holding them back? Live and let live. What you bothering them for? It wasn't enough. It got to a point where if you didn't speak up and speak out and be full throttle in your support for them and everything they wanted support for, you were anti. Nah, that's not true. But who said that message? Nobody on the left said it. Nobody on the right said it. You're not talking to people. Wait a minute. If you have a relationship with somebody, okay, it ain't for somebody else to approve or disapprove. Are they bothering you? Live and let live. Live your life. But when you come and you want to compete, you want to transition from a man to a woman and you want to compete in women's sports. Wait a minute. It ain't about being anti you. It's about how fair is that to that young lady who was born a lady, who was born a woman, a female. How fair is that to her to get in a boxing ring with her to be 300 or 400th in the world as a man, as a swimmer, and then you transition a woman and you win in a national championship.

[Patrick Bet-David]

They don't agree with you.

[Stephen A. Smith]

I'm just saying. They don't agree with me. But remember. But remember something, Everybody has their issue. And that's true. But how many issues are there that you care about? It's not just one. And again, I'm not saying that. Listen, Trump won the election. He got 49.8% of the votes. Over 70 million people voted against him. Of course I'm gonna have people that disapprove and play the numbers game.

[Vinny]

Can I say one thing?

[Patrick Bet-David]

So for example, Rob, can you, can you go on ChatGPT and type in the following things? What are the top five most important issues for Democratic voter in 2025? What are the top five most important issues for a Democratic voter in 2025?

[Adam]

Okay, I already know the answer.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Well, let me just zoom in for you. So this is where I'm going with this. Yours doesn't match with them.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Gun violence, economic inequality.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Inequality. It's different than economic. Where you're thinking about. Cuz you're not thinking about economic equality like Bernie Sanders and aoc. That's not your. You're trying to get people. Hey, I'm Stephen. I came from nothing and I made it to the top, right? Health care access and affordability, reproductive rights, climate change. None of these are your five. And that's the voter of the Democratic Party. They don't relate to you. And you don't relate to them.

[Stephen A. Smith]

But centrist left, centrists left do relate to me. Independents do relate to me. And I got news for you, some folks on the right relate to me.

[Patrick Bet-David]

And that's right.

[Stephen A. Smith]

It's the combination. It's the combination of what's going on on the left compared to how strong your candidate is. You got Steve Bannon out there trying to get Trump a third term. Why? I looked at him, I said, I said, what's the affection and the affinity for Trump? What's that about? I said, Marco Rubio, J.D. vance, along with a plethora of other candidates, are more than qualified and they would govern along the same line as Trump. What does he say? He's once in a generation. Well, guess what? If you get two terms, you don't get a third. Somebody other than Trump is in there. And that once in a generation talent is now gone. Well, who's going to replace them? It's not a one in a generation talent. So because of that, that's where somebody else comes in and they could steal votes from both sides of the aisle.

[Patrick Bet-David]

I made my case.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Listen, I made my case.

[Patrick Bet-David]

I made my case, dog. What I'm going to do for you, I'm going to be in your ear, dog, for the next two years. That's all I'm going to tell you.

[Adam]

Can I say one thing, Stephen? I love you. I'm going come at you right now.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Sure.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Please.

[Adam]

Okay. Cuz you're me two years ago, where I've been a Democrat my whole life. My dad was a Clinton guy. He was a JFK Democrat. I was, I, I loved, you know, Obama was I. But he was better than McCain. George W. Bush was a disaster.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Okay.

[Adam]

And when Trump showed up, I was like, hell to the N N N. And 2020, I was. How much money did I make when I bet everybody that Trump was going to lose on the podcast?

[Patrick Bet-David]

Yeah.

[Adam]

And now how much do you joke about me being like the biggest MAGA guy now?

[Patrick Bet-David]

It's out of control. Like, we can disagree with something on Trump. No, I think he's doing the right thing. You know, a lot of the time he's, he's in a complete different state.

[Adam]

And it's been, yeah, but I'll still criticize him when he's doing wrong. Yeah, it's so liberating to vote for Trump and be like, all right, I agree with, with the positions, I agree with the policies. I don't like how he talks like that. I don't like this, but there's Something different this time. Trump 2.0 versus Trump 1.0. Four years sitting in the wings looking at what's going on here. Everything you said, brother, is my exact 5. The economy, the border, safety, security, national security, defense, you know, peace through strength and foreign affairs. Not basically being an ostrich head in the sand. Bro, you're a Republican.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Okay, Straight up.

[Adam]

I'm just telling you, this is my top five of the Democrats. Abortion, abortion, abortion. Medicare for all abortion, lgbtq, A Mafia.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Let me say you're a grown ass man.

[Adam]

No men. With, like, a man who likes women. Like, I know you do. I know we do. You're not a Democrat no more.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Okay, Fair enough. What I'm saying to you is this. I am pro life. I'm sorry, I'm pro choice.

[Adam]

Okay.

[Stephen A. Smith]

I am pro choice, but it's not.

[Adam]

Your number one issue.

[Stephen A. Smith]

It's not my number one issue, but probably not even your top five. I'm just saying it's not okay. But there's a bunch of women in my life.

[Adam]

True.

[Stephen A. Smith]

And they don't like the fact that their individual choices, in their eyes, have been compromised. And so, again, I'm not for abortion, but I'm not for telling a woman what to do with her body. That's my belief. I'm not saying it's a top five priority, but that's just how I feel.

[Patrick Bet-David]

I get that.

[Stephen A. Smith]

That's just how I feel. So that's just an example. But my point to you is this.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Fy, Planned Parenthood was built to minimize the amount of African Americans having millions of singer. I do know that lady couldn't sing African American.

[Stephen A. Smith]

I do know that. I do know that. That's number one. Number two, I used to argue with Democrats all the time because I thought they were swinging too far to the left.

[Adam]

They're gone. They're so far left.

[Stephen A. Smith]

I mean, exactly. And I don't know if I'll ever support them again. I think the party needs to be purged. I've said this now. I don't want to be disrespectful to any specific individual Democrats. I like Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania. I've interviewed him. I've spoken to him a few times. I like him. Wes Moore is my guy, the governor of Maryland. And I really, really like that brother. He's somebody. If you haven't had him on here, you should get him on here. Yeah. Oh, yeah. If you need me, I'll make a call for you. I mean, that's somebody I'd love to Speak with you. That's somebody that you should talk to. And I'm going to tell him he needs to talk to you. I love Westmore. These are guys that are more qualified than me. Obviously, most of them are. But I'm saying they're governors. They're running a state. They know what they're doing. I had the pleasure of interviewing Andrew Cuomo. I'm one of those dudes that. It always rubbed me the wrong way when he was thrown. And I know that he messed up with the nursing home stuff, but it always messed. It always messed with me that these cases were thrown against him. And the second he was out of office, you didn't hear nothing about it. That really, really bothered me because I was like, so the objective was to get him out of profile. And like you pointed out, and I'm saying to you, I'm a guy that believes those people. That infrastructure that needs. That needs to be burnt down because they're hurting our country because they're not letting and abiding by the wishes of the American people. They're telling you who they want and compelling folks on their side to pick their candidate. I'm saying all of that needs to change. So if that is going to lead me towards. Okay, look. Look at how you feel. You're leaning more right than left. I'm not going to oppose that because I'm not beyond voting for a Republican. I'm letting you know that I'm not. I didn't say. I might have disagreed with you on that one point. You would make it about me. But let me be very, very clear. There's a lot of stuff you've said, Vinnie, I totally agree with. Totally agree with. I'm not gonna sit here, I'm talking to this man. Half the time. This guy's always. I'm like, yeah, you got a point. You got what? I am friends with Sean Hannity.

[Vinny]

Yeah.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Sean Hannity and I have known each other for 23 years. We butt heads. We butt heads. We butt heads. But I'd be lying to you to say if I said I was more right than wrong. I mean, he's usually got the edge on me. This is what he does for a living. So I come with my emotions, I come with my feelings, and I come with my semblance of facts. And then I'm dealing with a dude that's just a veteran that's been on fox news for 25 years. Who else do I have on speed dial? Mark Levin. You interviewed a great one. One day, Mark Levin. And I have known each other for 20 years now. They know what my, my politics are. They know that I'm a bit different than them. But my respect for their knowledge and their positions and why they have those positions are hard to dispute. So I'm not a, I'm not averse. I don't, I don't get. I.

[Adam]

But let Sean Hannity try to show up on first take. You're gonna run circles around that.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Yes. Because he doesn't know sports. He needs to stay the hell out of it.

[Adam]

He's shooting air balls.

[Stephen A. Smith]

He needs to stay the hell out of there. All he knows is t stay on the sidelines.

[Vinny]

And I know so Steve, I know. And by the way, like, I know we said it, it was, it was one thing that wasn't about what I'm talking about when you said I don't give a what you give a. But you know what's crazy? I love it. I give a about you and here. And here's where I'm going. Somebody like you that would run for a president, that's the type of person like, because all this other stuff that you listed that you were saying in the beginning, that's Trump circa 2016. Come in. The hell with everybody, want to make change and do everything. The only concern is that same infrastructure, those same people that have. That had like a Trump that to me, it would be like what you would come in as. They would destroy you with what he's talking about. Because think about it, anybody that comes in that tries to change the status quo, Stephen, they try to destroy them. Look what they did with Trump. Lawfare, Russia, collusion, all that shit. Somebody like you that's going to try to come in with them, they're going to look at you and be like, who the. They will, they will find anything that they can and do everything.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Look.

[Vinny]

And then, and I'm going to go there. Look at all the ones that actually try to make a change. Jfk, Reagan, Trump, they don't like people like you. You go in there and I know that you give a shame about this country. I know for a fact, Stephen A. Smith, you are an American. You're a pick. You love this place. I don't mean we can go back and forth and argue, but I agree with you more than I disagree with you. But this system that tried to destroy and kill Trump would go after you the same way that they went out there, especially that party.

[E]

Bernie Sanders was winning the primary. Bernie Sanders was gonna be the candidate.

[Stephen A. Smith]

It wasn't his turn.

[E]

And it wasn't his turn. And what they did in South Carolina, they changed the rules and pulled it out from under them.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Yes, they did.

[E]

Even with your voice, even if all the place you can go and your wonderful Republican positions here, even where you. What do you do when they flip the switch?

[Stephen A. Smith]

I don't understand your question.

[E]

Like what they did to Bernie in South Carolina. Well, listen, if they decide. No, no, no, you're not, you're not. You're not our establishment.

[Stephen A. Smith]

I don't know. I don't know the answer to that question. Because I can't imagine that you just gonna switch. You gonna flip the switch and you gonna get away with that with me, with the army of individuals that I have bringing us. When I talk about bringing a tsunami, I'm not talking about me, just myself. You know, you make a lot of connections and friends in this business. You know, the industry that I'm in, which is the fourth estate, which I've been a part of for 30 years, I'm talking about that kind of tsunami. Because you gotta remember, it's all about public perception. You're gonna have to deal with that reality because you're gonna have a voice, but I'm gonna have a louder voice. And I'm gonna come down upon you to get to your point of what you were saying. You're absolutely right. I do love America. And I think that we got a lot of problems in this country. And I blame most of it on the politicians because I think they make a concerted effort to divide us. And I think that the friction that we have in our communities throughout this country, amongst people and all of that stuff, if we all got together, you'd find that we have a lot more in common than we don't. You'd find that we can get along a lot easier than people would want to believe. But because of policies that they put in place and how they go about the business of adroitly engaging in division to keep us all divided so they could have their cliques supporting them or somebody supporting the other side, it's really contributed to the deterioration of this country. And so when I look at it, I just say to myself, look, look, politics or no politics, I'm the kind of person that, like Sean Hannity holds me to this. You promise me every week you run it, you ever got in office, you gonna come on every week? I say, every month. He said, you're already being a politic now. I said, every week is too much. Every month. I wouldn't run from anybody. And what I mean, by that, Vinny is this. If somebody like PBD is my guy, you think I'm not gonna talk to him? Think I'm not gonna ask him what he's thinking about something? You know, we gotta get away from thinking that one side in this binary system that one side or the other has, sometimes it's both, sometimes it's a happy medium. Like I might listen if, if, if, if we're sitting around and we're talking about policies that really affect us as a nation, right? And we're talking about keeping peace in the streets, no one can have it all, but we gonna lean far more on what the right is, what the right side is, whatever that is, okay? And you might get your little something, but they're going to get this something too, because their idea is better and it's better for America. If we could pull that off, then we got a better country. You got this big, beautiful bill that everybody's talking about. Well, you talk about 8 trillion, you know, what is it? What 8 trillion committed pledged from companies and stuff like that. You're talking about more folks having jobs, you're talking about more drilling in this country. You talk about a lot of different things that are going to benefit us, but they're talking about it's going to contribute about another $5 trillion potentially to the deficit. Well, you can't find something that contributes less than $5 trillion to the deficit because that's kind of defeating the purpose.

[Patrick Bet-David]

You know what I'm saying?

[Stephen A. Smith]

That's kind of defeat the purpose, okay? You got millions of people that's going to be without health care. You can't find a way to avoid there being millions of people without health care. When you start asking these questions and dealing with stuff on a real level like that, all of a sudden it's not about party, it's about what's best. We don't have people that's thinking about what's best because they're on Capitol Hill and you got lobbyists in their face trying to get them to do their bidding. And people are capitulating to that because they've turned it into a career. If you already got one and you're making money and you surround yourself with people whose ideas are about doing what's in the best interest of America. You might have a chance.

[Patrick Bet-David]

And by the way, you know, the best ideas will win. And it takes a couple years to get exposed.

[Stephen A. Smith]

True.

[Patrick Bet-David]

During COVID a lot of leftist ideas got exposed in a major, major way. They got exposed. Okay, so let's talk WNBA real quick because sports Caitlin Clark and Angel. Angel Reese, right? They're going back and forth. And Jamilah Hill says by the time Angel Reese is done, she's going to be the Michael Jordan of wnba.

[Stephen A. Smith]

She said about Angel Reese.

[Patrick Bet-David]

She said, Angel Reese by the time she retires. Can you pull up this quote? She said by the time she retires, she will be the MJ of Go to Jamil Hill. Type in Jameel Hill. Yeah. She says by the time she retired, Jamil Hill has made a bold prediction that Angel Reels will become the MJ of the WNBA by the time she retires. That's what she said. Okay, okay. Let me continue.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Okay.

[Patrick Bet-David]

All right. So now.

[Adam]

Okay, guy.

[Patrick Bet-David]

While this is taking place, Brittney Griner comes out and says, I am so sick and tired of the NBA wnba. It used to be a peaceful, small little thing. Now there's crowds screaming, hollering. This is disruptive. It's not allowing us to play the game. This is her quote. I don't know if you saw this or not when she gave that. Okay, can you pull up that quote? Because I got to read to. I'm gonna apply for a job at first take. I'm telling you right now, part time. I'm coming on board, helping you guys out. Can you type in Brittany Griner?

[Stephen A. Smith]

I bring you on. I bring you.

[Patrick Bet-David]

I'd have fun with you. Brittany. Brittany Griner. Where? She says. Yeah, she says right there. Watch this. Every time we play her, there's this commotion, like this loud rumbling from the stands. Turns out it's people, thousands of them just sitting there watching on purpose. It's very disruptive. She says WNBA games used to be a chill, quiet place. You could bring your laptop and relax, maybe even get a little work done. But now it's like there's large gatherings of people watching us from the stand. Some of them are yelling crazy shit about what they're seeing, putting unfair pressure on us to score. Like we're there for their entertainment. You are. The whole thing is toxic. I saw a guy with his daughter in the crowd, both of them yelling. Couldn't hear what they were saying exactly, but it was either my performance or some light racism. Light racism. But here's where I'm going with this. So the WNBA says they want to get paid more. They're saying this year they're going to make a billion dollars. That's what they're saying. Okay. For the first time ever, now that Caitlyn Clark is hurt for two weeks did you see ticket prices? Insane. Let me read you the ticket prices after Caitlin Clark's been hurt for two weeks. All right, so let's go through this. Caitlin Clark absence is having an immediate impact beyond the court. According to data shared by Yahoo Sports via Tick Pick, prices for two specific Indiana Fever away games against the Chicago sky and the Washington Mystics dropped sharply after Clark was sidelined before the injury. The lowest ticket available for Fever's matchup in Chicago was $86 for the game in Washington. Fans needed at least $41 to get in. After the news of Clark's absence, those get in price fell. Those get in prices fell to $25 from $86 and $14 from 41. What the hell is going on with WNBA that they cannot handle all this attention that they're getting as well as the hate and anger towards Caitlin Clark?

[Stephen A. Smith]

First things first. Respectfully, Brittney Griner was in a Russian prison. You would think that somebody who is now free back in America on a home, on home soil would not have too much to complain about, especially something like this. Fans. In every sport. She described the fans. Yeah, it doesn't matter what sport you are. It doesn't matter what sports you pick. That's how fans act in every arena. In every arena. So. And then when you clearly, she's not remembering who they let out to get her back. The merchant of death, an arms dealer that wanted to kill American citizens. According to the reports, that's who they let out for her. You would think that you would be smiling, you would be ecstatic, you would be happy, and something like this wouldn't phase you at all. The fact that it does is disturbing. I'll leave it at that. When it comes to Caitlin Clark now, I've taken hits because I was calling it from day one. You got people that are, resentment, they're resentful towards her, but not she. It's really not about her, guys. It's about what she represents. Before she ever came along, there were a lot of outstanding basketball players who happened to be black females that was doing their thing on the WNBA level and they never got this kind of shine. This girl, the golden goose comes along and she wreaks havoc. She's the rookie of the year. She's fourth in the league in MVP voting. Fourth in the league her rookie year.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Wow.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Outstanding. She's like Steph Curry. She could pull up from anywhere. You understand she has that kind of capability then won a national championship, lost to LSU one year. We lost to South Carolina another year but she's out. She's outstanding and clearly worthy of being the number one overall pick. And what I was saying to everybody is ride the wave. Rising tide lifts all boats. The girl is spectacular. It's not like she's, she's not only she's not a scrub, she's not only can play, she's a star caliber player who draws this attention. And maybe it's because that fan base that she has and her being a young white lady contributes to it. So what? Benefit from it. And then you have a lot of folks that have come to the defense of numerous WNBA players because they were pointing out like this has been going on before long and people are not hating on her. It's not about hating on her. It's that you feel she is getting a level of attention that you deserved and you warranted long before she ever came along. It's understandable. But it happens. You think there weren't players that, that, that weren't jealous of Michael Jordan, that didn't resent Michael Jordan. Okay. After Detroit Pistons, how they felt about Michael Jordan and how much they enjoyed beating him up before he ultimately captured the championship. Eventually he stopped. He got tired of getting his ass kicked. Like literally slammed him to the floor. You know, Jordan rules.

[Adam]

Exactly.

[Stephen A. Smith]

He got tired of all that, got himself bulkier, bigger, et cetera. And all of these things happened. The point is Magic and Bird, Jordan, Kobe came along. There was resentment. I mean, it, it, the list goes on and on. It happens. So to me, there's nothing wrong with the resentment that you may feel towards what she represents. It's actually good because it provokes a level of hostility which elevates the competitive fervor. And y' all go out there and compete and everybody gets paid. But unfortunately, you almost feel like you have some folks within the WNBA that wishes, that would rather not be in a very fruitful position because of their resentment towards her. And they won't admit it, but I've been talking about it for months.

[Adam]

I gotta reply to this.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Adam]

So I'm not just gonna let you sit here and talk trash about my man Brittney Griner. I'm just letting you know right now because my dude, Brittany, she's a young lady. Let me defend her for a second, please. There's people in there making noises. They're yelling, they're booing. In her defense, she's never seen fans before. Stephen A. Smith, they've never been at the games. They've never had fans. Now she has crowds and she's Wondering.

[Stephen A. Smith]

That Baylor, before she came to the wnba. You trying to tell me there was a fan? All those Baylor bear baskets. I'm just saying that. Oh, no, no. Though 15 years ago, women's basketball. Oh, yeah. College gets their love now. Come on, now.

[Patrick Bet-David]

But not the.

[Adam]

Not wnba. Not the wnba.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Well, it's grown.

[Adam]

And the best thing that they've ever had in the WNBA is Caitlyn Clark from a.

[Stephen A. Smith]

From a box office perspective.

[Adam]

And by the way, she ain't the first to do this. There's Diana Tausi. There's Lisa Leslie.

[Stephen A. Smith]

There's phenomenal. All of them.

[Adam]

Respect to them.

[Stephen A. Smith]

All of them.

[Adam]

All of them. But let's just call Spade here.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Sure.

[Adam]

WNBA is trash.

[Stephen A. Smith]

No, I'm saying that.

[Adam]

Okay, this is my opinion. Okay, this is my opinion.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Okay?

[Adam]

It's a zombie company. It loses money. Nobody's going to the game. Thank God they get Clayton Clark. She's injured for two weeks. All of a sudden, attendance goes down. This is not gonna work long term. You trust me, you'll see this. Long term? Ain't nobody going to WNBA games. Vinnie, who won the championship last year? You don't even know who's the. You're a professional sports pass. Come on, Tom, who's the leading player in the league right now? WNBA. You don't know?

[Stephen A. Smith]

Sarah, PBD.

[Adam]

How many teams are there in the WNBA?

[Patrick Bet-David]

60.

[Adam]

I don't know. The point is, nobody cares. And we're trying to make a story out of a story that don't exist. And I'm here to play the game. Wnba. Caitlin Clark, nobody cares.

[Stephen A. Smith]

If the.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Nobody cares. If the WNBA makes a billion dollars this year, you lose the argument. Okay, if the wnba.

[Adam]

That's the biggest if ever.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Okay, what is W. If my grandma had a.

[Adam]

She'd be my go.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Listen, guy. It's projecting that this year WNBA is going to make $1 billion.

[Stephen A. Smith]

That's.

[Adam]

Is that profit or revenue?

[Patrick Bet-David]

It doesn't matter. You'll find a way to increase ebitda, driven by a surge in popularity, increased revenue from tickets as merchandise and television deals, particularly due to the impact of the players like Caitlin Clark. The league's revenue is expected to grow significantly, with forecasts suggesting a global market value exceeding a billion dollars. Okay, this is going in that direction.

[Adam]

25 years where they haven't.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Yeah, but so now all of a.

[Adam]

Sudden, you want to be like, maybe.

[Stephen A. Smith]

This time it was growing before she arrived, and then it elevated to another level once she's arrived, and she's not going anywhere anytime soon. Oh, by the way remember this name, okay? Juju Watkins.

[Adam]

Okay.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Out of usc.

[Adam]

I've seen her.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Freshman, great player, spectacular acl, an NCAA tournament last year. You know, she's special. And I'm just telling you, you're going to see. You're going to see the league continue.

[Adam]

Who wins this game? Ready? WNBA all star versus the best high school players. ABC Nike game. High school Ben versus WNBA player, best players.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Here's my response. Here's my response to that. I think it would be the high school, but I would say this to.

[Adam]

You because you're right.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Don't underestimate women and the growing support they're providing to the wnba. Remember, anything successful, you usually have the women behind it supporting the product. The NBA and the NFL, yes. Went to another level once they had. Once they appealed more to women. What if the women decide we gonna focus and lock in on the wnba?

[Adam]

No, the NFL started growing once they implemented what's called cheerleaders. And people are like, oh, okay, we'll go to the game. Look at them. Look at them. Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Come on, bro.

[Patrick Bet-David]

You lost credibility. How did I lose credibility at this point? Like, stop the podcast, Brent. Rob, let's just finish it up. Ridiculous and go to.

[Adam]

I'm losing credibility. WMA hasn't made one penny, but I'm losing credibility.

[Patrick Bet-David]

I'll tell you one thing. Let me.

[E]

Credibility, bizarre statement about the NBA.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Let me tell you what I like. Let me tell you what I like. You know what I like. Here's what I like. I don't care what's going on. I want to see animosity in sports.

[Adam]

Yes.

[Patrick Bet-David]

I don't care what's going on. I love the fact that right now, who's the guy in the heavyweight UFC that's pushing the buttons of Jon Jones saying, I'm officially the. Oh, Thomas heavy with Aspinall. He's saying I'm officially the feet because Jon Jones has retired. Jon Jones has retired. Jon Jones has retired. Right. I love animosity. The best fights were Cormier against Jon Jones. The best fights was Khabib against, you know, Connor. You know, you. You want that? You know, Mayweather used to fight what weekend? Cinco de Mayo. That was his way. Like, I'm going to take your ass out. So to me, I don't know, I just love the fact that there's animosity. You know what, you know what game? I want to see the stat line on? You know what game the next time Fever plays, whoever, whatever team she plays. No, no, no, Only Reese. Yeah, only Reese. Because animosity changes the game. My opinion, LeBron destroyed the game because animosity left the NBA. And by the way, look how interesting the NBA product is right now. Who the hell is in the finals?

[Adam]

Indiana vs. OKC.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Indiana vs. OKC? Are you freaking kidding me? Like there is no main names that we were, you know, the LeBron's or the Giannis's or you know, the all of these guys.

[Stephen A. Smith]

For the short term it may be problematic because both are in a small market. Even though Shay Gilgis Alexander is the league MVP and he is special and their defense, like a bunch of piranhas, they, I mean they're special. Let me ask you. Indiana's better. But I will tell you the league for the long term is not upset about this because remember, you're looking for new stars for sure. And the ant man, the Shay Gilgeous Alexander, you know, you're looking at a Tyrese Halliburton. You saw a Brunson, you're seeing some of these other guys on the come up wondering what they're going to bring to the table. You want some of that young blood infused?

[Patrick Bet-David]

You mind tell me what I like about Halliburton? He creates animosity.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Yes.

[Patrick Bet-David]

There's something about him. He's not an exciting player.

[Stephen A. Smith]

We thought Trae Young was going to do more of that, but he hasn't been in a position to do.

[Patrick Bet-David]

I bought 70 of his tyres.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Halliburton is.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, look, I mean we'll see what's going to happen.

[Adam]

NBA.

[Patrick Bet-David]

NBA. Thibodeau got fired today. Yes, he did. Brunson's getting interviewed and he says. So you think your coach is the right coach? Excuse me, what question are you asking? Are you asking if that's our coach? Yes, of course that's our coach. What a dumb. And then walks out right next day, two days later, the guy gets fired. Good decision or bad decision by the Knicks?

[Stephen A. Smith]

I don't like the decision. I don't like the decision because I think it has scapegoat written all over it. I've been critical of Tom Thibodeau in the past because I think Kenny Smith for TNT came up with the line of the players when he said Tom Thibodeau wouldn't want to play nine dudes on a baseball field. And that was a great line because it's the total truth. But the man has gotten them to the playoffs the last four years. They've advanced every single time. They got better than they were the year before and they were within two games of a birth to the NBA Finals. And the reason why they didn't get there is because they just weren't good enough. I know they blew game one, which was a devastating loss. You have 17 with over six minutes left, 14 with two minutes and 50 seconds left. Nine minutes with just 52 seconds left, and you blew that damn game. That was horrible. No doubt about it. But the Indiana Pacers were a better team. Their better coach, Rick Carlisle is a better Coach. He's gone 11 deep throughout the year. He had 11 guys play 15 minutes or more this season. Rick Carlisle, 11 guys play 15 minutes or more this season during a regular season.

[Patrick Bet-David]

How do you even do that?

[Stephen A. Smith]

Because again, he was building the team for the postseason. And they've been a top one or two seed in the NBA since January 1st. So even though they had a lower seed, this is not a team that was really a lower seed. And so you look at Indiana and what they bring to the table in terms of their offensive potency and the fact that you've got a playmaker in Halliburton who gets off chirping and, and antagonizing the opposition of their crowd.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Give me more.

[Stephen A. Smith]

It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. He's got his work cut out for him with OKC though, I can tell you that. Okc, I haven't seen a defense like this in a long time. It looks scary, you know, and there's only two play Everybody talking about Shay Gibbs Alexander. He was the runner up for league MVP last year. When he got my vote. He got my vote again this year. He won the league mvp. Did you know that his backcourt partner, Jalen Williams.

[Adam]

Jalen Williams, Yeah.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Only him and Evan Mobley of the Cleveland Cavaliers are the only two players in the entire NBA who was voted on one of the all NBA teams and one of the all NBA defensive teams.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Get out of here.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Only those two.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Good for those.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Only those two players.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Wow.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Only the only two in the entire league. And that's a sidekick. Who by the way, was just in the conference finals against ant man, averaged 22.2 points, shot 49% from the field, shot 46% from three point range. That's the sidekick. If that brother shows up and plays this way against Indiana, two questions. This ain't gonna be much.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Two questions for you. Two questions for you. If. If shakyless Alexander brings a championship to okc, which looks like 70% chance it's gonna happen, right?

[Stephen A. Smith]

Yes. It's better than 70% I'm with it.

[Patrick Bet-David]

But I'm just saying that this is gonna happen, right? How does this hurt the legacy of Harden, Durant and Westbrook?

[Stephen A. Smith]

It makes Shay Gilgeous Alexander clearly the greatest player in the history of the franchise. Clearly the greatest player in the history of franchise. Because he, listen, Harden, it doesn't affect at all because Harden was a reserve playing behind Westbrook 15 points a game. And he was, well, he was young at the time, but then they moved to Houston and gave him, and gave him the.

[Patrick Bet-David]

And then he crushed it as a scorer.

[Stephen A. Smith]

And then he crushed it as a scorer. Russell Westbrook, I don't want to say it hurts him, but it does because he was a star player, Mr. Triple Double, um, three years in a row, actually did his thing, but never delivered the championship. The one it really, really does hurt is KD. Because if KD stays, you likely win a championship. Remember, four, three, remember, they were down 3:1. They let go. They were up 3:1. They let Golden State come back. Golden State eclipses them, wins the series, four, three.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Yep.

[Stephen A. Smith]

And then three weeks later, he goes and signs with Golden State and won two back to back championships. He was clearly the best player on the team. He's better than Steph Curry, he's better than Klay Thompson, and he deserves his two NBA Finals MVPs, and he deserves his two championships. But you left OKC. And so because you left OKC, you didn't deliver the goods for them. You jumped on shit with the Splash brothers to get your two chips. Shay Gilgis got traded there, they built around him and he wins a championship. He's clearly the greatest player in the history of the Oakland State.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Follow up question with you on this. Follow up question with you on this. So profile. When you look at this KD, when they had the team, mid-20s, Westbrook, mid-20s, maybe a little bit older, but 25, 26, 27. How old is Shay right now? 24, 25?

[Stephen A. Smith]

I don't know, 25, but 26, 26 years old. 26, 27.

[Patrick Bet-David]

So they were the same age. While they're handling all this pressure and the people he took out, it's not like he didn't take out anybody. They took out some teams is what they took out. Shay, how much of the credit do you give to the fact that he is just cool, temperament, poise. He's being interviewed, they asked him a question. How do you feel about the fact that people call you the free throw merchant? Doesn't bother me. I'm okay with that. Nothing gets to the guy, do you give that. That's credit to him where he's got that ice?

[Stephen A. Smith]

He deserves that credit because his calm demeanor, the co. His ice demeanor, not phased by much. That's leadership. Never too high, never too low. You can trust him. You can rely upon him. I got into a debate on First Take today with the great Candace Parker, who won three chips in the wnba. And I was saying that she was like, she loved that, even keelads. And I said, I understand that, but let's make sure the world knows sometimes elevation is called for. Sometimes moments require you to be a bit more than your normal self. And Shay plays like that, but his temperament, his mindset is not like that. He's always cool, and even when they've had, you know, they've been compromised. I remember when he lost in Denver, and I think it was either game four or six, and he walked off the court laughing because he was looking at the crowd and was like. It was like he was saying, y' all do know y' all gotta play us again, right? You know, and then they getting blown out in Minnesota, I had to cover the Western Conference finals. So I'm there in person and on courts are a few feet away from them, and they're losing by 43. And he's just sitting there talking to his teammates, okay, here's what we did wrong. We ain't gonna do this again. Next game, it's gonna be all right. Just be cool, you know? And then he comes out there and he drops 40, you know, the very next game, he dropped 40. So 40, 10 and nine, to be exact. So you just look at him and you just say to yourself, the pieces that they have around them, though, helps when I know that I'm working with an elite team that can shut you down at any moment, and we go 9, 10, 11 deep. I'm not worried about much. So even though his personality is his personality, it also helps that he could afford to be that way, because they're all about stop you. They want to guard you from the moment they get off the team bus.

[Adam]

I think they're the best team in the league this year. I think they had the highest point differential of all time. Literally, of all time. But I'll tell you this. 2012 OKC plays 2025 OKC. I'm taking 2012 KD, Russ Harden, Serge Ibaka, that whole unit. I think they're running laps around this team. And I'll say one more thing, okay? The reason that we're not talking about OKC being One of the greatest teams of all time because they ran into a buzzsaw called the Big Three. The Heatles in 2012 with LeBron D. Wade and Bosch and Shane Battier and Co. And Mike Miller and all these guys.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Okay, well, who WINS that game?

[Adam]

2012 Miami Heat versus India Penn is 2025.

[Stephen A. Smith]

That's a 4, 0, sweep, sweep, sweep. You're probably right. But here's what I would tell you. It's a couple of things to consider. Number one, KD is the difference because he's an offensive machine. And at 6ft 11 with a J, a three point shot and an ability to put it on the ball, that's unguardable. You understand? So ant man 6, 5, 6, 6, you're Lou Dort. You're literally a linebacker playing basketball. You can't move him. He's that strong and he's physical. Right. Well, that's not gonna really work against LeBron James. No, that's not gonna work against KD because he's just too tall and he can look right over you and he can shoot right over you. So it's problematic. So you might be right. The reason why I say might as opposed to speaking definitively is because as great as Russell Westbrook is or was, he's also mercurial. He can be chaotic. He can turn the ball over, whatever, they live off of it. They're averaging 23 points off turnovers.

[Adam]

This OKC team.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Yes. And it's a 20 point differential from anybody else in the postseason. So what I'm saying to you is if you got a guy that is not protecting the basketball, it can mess you up. How do we notice Kevin Durant left?

[Adam]

That's true. Can I give one more piece of information?

[Patrick Bet-David]

Last topic on this. And then I want to go back to some issues because I got to ask him about 50 and a couple other things. Anthony Edwards, Yeah, we're told, is the Michael Jordan of the NBA.

[Stephen A. Smith]

I changed my mind really. Talent wise, he is. When I saw him resign himself to the circumstances in game six, game five, I'm sorry. It changed my mind because it reminded me of Michael Jordan. I remember when Pat Riley with the Knicks would take a 250 pound forward named Anthony Mason and he put him on Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan knew that dribbling the ball out front, top of the key, that kind of area and stuff like that made it easier for him to be guarded because he ain't playing with his back to the basket, out that far away from the basket. So you can guard him and you can anticipate what direction he's going in, et cetera. And it wasn't that much on you. So what he had to do was get stronger, play with his back to the basketball and kill you with his mid range game. And that's what he did. How would I know this? Because he told me, he told me that years ago. And what he, when he was telling me that he was marveling at the greatness of Kobe Bryant because he looked at Kobe and Kobe. He never had to tell Kobe that. Kobe watched his tapes and figured it out. That was the student that Kobe was. I see a phenomenal talent who has the potential to be the face of the league if he really, really wants it in Ant man, what I didn't see was that I didn't see a guy that said, this is what they're doing to me. Let me figure this out. Let me come at it this way. Let me try it this way. I didn't see a coach in Finch who made the necessary adjustments. I didn't see guys surrounding him that could put the ball on the floor after getting chased off the three point line and pulling up and scoring off the pull ups. You know, the Minnesota Timberwolves were a post season low of anybody, 32% from the field. And pull ups, the minute you chase them off the three point line and you, you force them to pull up off the dribble, they don't make nas Reed, Jaden McDaniels, Mike Conley Jr. People like that, they're set shooters. They're not shooters off the dribble. Oklahoma City knew that. So Oklahoma City got up in Ant. Everywhere ant went, it's like Vinny's sitting up there and Aunt Drum down the court, he going to run. You know, Simpson, he's just touching him. Just touch everywhere he go. Just pushing him, making sure he was felt. And it demoralized him. And I saw it. And that's why I say, now let.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Me tell you what's scary right now. This is what's scary right now. Story comes out that Michael Jordan wants to go be a commentator for the NBA.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Yes, sir.

[Patrick Bet-David]

NBC and reportedly it's going to be around $40 million annual deal makes him the highest paid guy, you know, et cetera, et cetera. Tom Brady, 37 and a half. A part of me as a fan sits here and says, dude, Michael, they must be doing this because the NBA desperately needs his help because it's lost viewership. Heck, people may watch the game to just hear his commentary and not even pay Attention to the game. Right. But if you would have told me 10 years ago, five years ago, Michael's gonna come back and do commentating, I would say. STEPHEN A. I don't know if I can see that happening. Tell me your thoughts on this.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Couple things. Number one, don't believe everything you read. NBA Countdown, espn, our ratings are up, not down. Our ratings are up. Okay. From a year ago, from two years ago. That's number one. Number two, linear television is one component. More eyeballs are transitioning to digital. And what people don't realize is just like you're doing this, like you're not on linear television. You guys have over 6 million followers. They're watching you. It's just not on linear. So when you see people, they're not watching. It's just like with me when people, I guess I'm a rarity because, you know, first takes ratings have, you know, been what it is and stuff like that. But I've got over a million subscribers on YouTube inside of two years.

[Patrick Bet-David]

I watch more than I watch the game.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Yeah, I appreciate it. But what I'm saying to you is that they're watching me on digital. They're watching first take on digital. I personally Register myself over 2.3 billion views annually between first take, between my podcast, between NBA Countdown stuff. Because it's not just linear. So just because they say that the numbers are down on linear television, there's a reason why Amazon has now replaced tnt. There's a reason for that. Now when you think about Michael Jordan, that's NBC. That's the long standing relationship. Amar Rashad used to be over there. NBA, NBC had the contract and you had this, you had one executive that had a very close relationship with Michael Jordan that convinced him to do it. Because for network television, that's a drop in the bucket for them to get Michael Jordan. Let me tell you something about Michael Jordan. He's going to be brutally honest. Oh, I can show you that. He's not going to be somebody that's going to be passive about not the Michael Jordan I know. The Michael Jordan I know when talking basketball. He is as candid as it gets. He ain't trying to hurt nobody's feelings. He ain't trying to be insulting. But he's going to tell you what's going on. Just like I just described something with Ant Man. That's something he'll tell you. He's talking about the game of basketball. I don't think he's going to be passive at all. I really, really don't And I'm actually proud of him for doing it because, you know, with the Jordan brand and him being worth over 2 billion, so he don't need this. So his mentality. Ah, please. And wasting my time with that because he never wants to be interviewed and all this other stuff. And I said, come on, man. Let me tell you something. Stop acting like you have nothing to say about basketball. Not that you. Now that you retired. You talk about it all the damn time. I'm talking about. I'm literally talking about getting a call. What the hell did you. What the hell did I just hear you say? Call me. Call me now. What the hell you say that for? It don't make no damn sense. This is him right now. He wasn't as. As eloquent like Kobe. Kobe was a little bit different. Motherfucker. I know I didn't just hear you say that shit. Don't even think about getting the fuck off the air and thinking that you gonna go someplace else. Cause you got another one of your damn 12 jobs. Pick up the goddamn phone and call me now.

[Adam]

That's Kobe.

[Stephen A. Smith]

That was Kobe. Wow. That was Kobe. Mike's not quite like that, but he's candid. And I don't think that he's going to be shy about saying what he sees at all. A matter of fact, if he is, he's gonna have to deal with me because I'm gonna be in his ear telling him, oh, we getting shy now. That's what we doing. That's what. That's what we do. That ain't the one. I named him mj. I know what you're doing. Let's go.

[Patrick Bet-David]

What are the chances? Are you excited about this? Are you sincerely, like, do you sit there and say, I'm excited for Michael coming back to him commentating?

[E]

Well, you have to remember where my fandom really grew up, right? I mean, I remember the national championship game between Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, and I was looking forward to both of them coming to the NBA. And it turns out Magic went to my beloved Lakers and they suddenly took off. You know, and you have to remember what stopped us. The move, the highlight move in the finals that Michael dropped on my beloved Lakers that I looked at with respect in my jaw, hanging out.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Game two.

[E]

Yeah. And you know what I remember? I remember my dad, my brother and I said, you know what? Next man up. There it is. You know, it's not Boston. It's not us. This guy. Here we go.

[Stephen A. Smith]

I And remember, that move came after they had lost game one. Magic.

[E]

Sam Perkins hit the shot.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Yeah. Sam Perkins hit the shot. Magic and Divock and those boys rolled into the United center one game. One. So Chicago couldn't afford to fall down. Zero, two. That was the game. He did that move, and then they won four straight.

[Adam]

Do you actually see him actually commentating? Do you see him following through with this and actually getting on air doing this?

[Stephen A. Smith]

Oh, he's committed to doing. He's gonna.

[Adam]

It's happening.

[Stephen A. Smith]

It's happening.

[Patrick Bet-David]

This.

[Stephen A. Smith]

This next season.

[Adam]

You're saying MJ is coming back to.

[Stephen A. Smith]

The NBA in the fall, to NBC.

[Adam]

The return of mj.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Save the NBA, Stephen.

[Adam]

Wow.

[Patrick Bet-David]

The viewership on tv. When you compare sport to sport to sport. Tv, tv, tv. Digital, digital, digital.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Okay?

[Patrick Bet-David]

Because they all say the same argument. NBA comparing to NFL.

[Stephen A. Smith]

No, it doesn't come in.

[Patrick Bet-David]

NFL is up. NBA is down. LeBron hurt the league. My opinion. I'm going to say my opinion. I watch Caitlin Clark get her ass handed to her, gets up within a second. If, God forbid, you Whisper something to LeBron, 20ft is sliding all the way to the other side. And we have to say, I would never, ever see Michael or Kobe ever do that. My opinion. I hope we see a level of toughness with the game coming back. And I hope he calls everybody out. I hope he calls everybody out.

[Stephen A. Smith]

You're saying LeBron may have hurt the league. Fine, I can side with that. But not for the reasons you're articulating. The reason why is when he joined Miami, you had everybody trying to join with one another instead of competing against one another. That's the real reason. You understand? CP3 went to Houston before that. He was trying to get to la. Remember that? And David Stern, nix that deal. Is the de facto owner for the Pelicans at the time. Okay, you know, you had, you know, Hoop City, and you had Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan and CP3 with the Clippers. You had LeBron, you had KD, you know, one upping them by joining the Splash brothers and going. Going to Golden State. You had Kawhi Leonard blackmailing the Los Angeles Lakers by the Clippers, rather by saying, go, you know, get Paul George or I'll go to the Lakers. You saw all of this. And so that's one of the other reasons why we should be excited about what we're seeing from Oklahoma City and Indiana, because they're showing. You don't have to, you know, have a collaboration of stars descending upon one locale in order to win championships. The fact that there's been an absence of, of success in that regard. Now you're looking at the new model where, guess what? Get a couple of stars, build with them, have supplementary parts around them that can ball and can bring stuff to the table, have leadership. That's about team. You see Shay Gilgis, Alexander doing an interview. You see his teammates surrounding him. You see Tyrese Halliburton, you know, doing an interview. You see teammates showering in with Ward or, you know, you know, messing with him and stuff like that. You seem camaraderie. You see team as opposed to a star, standing head and shoulders and distant above everybody else. That's what you're seeing right now.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Yeah, and I like it. I like seeing it. I don't mind seeing. Okay, let's transition to some stories about Ukraine. So story comes out that Ukraine bombs 40 or 41 bombers of Russia. The video has been all over the place. People have seen it. Absolute insanity. And more of a story comes out saying Ukraine has cards and there are long term cards, says Senator after meeting with Zelensky. Now, Rob, if you got this clip here, I think this was Blumenthal, if I'm not mistaken. Everybody's wondering what happened. We thought there's going to be a peace deal. We thought there was going to be the mineral deal that just got done. What are we doing? Going back to attacking these guys. Here's Blumenthal. Senator Blumenthal from Connecticut. Go ahead, Rob. Always uplifting and inspiring to spend time with Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

[Stephen A. Smith]

My seventh trip to Ukraine, most of them with Senator Graham, but I've met.

[Patrick Bet-David]

With him on numerous other occasions and.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Sadly, one of my main takeaways was that peace, even a ceasefire, are nowhere in sight.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Obviously, the Putin is launching, even as we speak, a major offensive, mobilizing forces in the east, Donetsk and Luhansk and other territories. But the Istanbul proposal that he made yesterday shows how unserious he is about peace talks. He's mocking Trump, playing him.

[Stephen A. Smith]

But the combination of the attacks in the east, the offensive there and the.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Attack, he's the cure for insomnia. Can you go to the other clip, Rob, if you could, from while this is going on, you got uk that comes out okay, uk. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer moves UK military to war fighting readiness. Why are they doing this? What's causing them to do this? Go ahead, Rob. Are moving to war fighting readiness.

[Stephen A. Smith]

When we are being directly threatened by states with advanced military forces, the most effective way to them is to be ready.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Okay, Vinnie, what's going on here?

[Vinny]

Well, Remember when we were talking about the other day on everything about. So, okay, Trump came in 2016. What was the major thing that they tried to get him with?

[Adam]

Russia.

[Vinny]

Russia, collusion, BS. Okay, he goes to 2020. What happens all of a sudden? And he's kicking ass. The economy. We're doing great. All of a sudden, a virus comes out of a lab that we own, destroys the world economy, everything. No president will ever survive a pandemic. Biden stays in the basement. They win. Now he does the biggest comeback in the history of anything, wins this election. And now what? There has to be something else that they have to try to ruin him. And I think my opinion, these war hawks like Richard Blumenthal, like Lindsey Graham and Mike Pompeo. And let's, let's talk real quick because we were wondering who Brandon mentioned, Tom, about the CIA or who could be there. What is Mike Pompeo, okay, ex CIA, Secretary of State. What business does he have? Stephen, please. Because I know you're probably going to be on my side here. What is he doing there? Rubbing, Rubbing elbows, shaking hands with these people. He has no business there. Okay, I, I looked up his time because I wanted to find out. He works for Kansas Strategic Solutions. It's basically, to me, it's a shell company.

[Stephen A. Smith]

That's.

[Vinny]

That's basically what it is. He's deep in their business scene. He's on the board of Kavistar K Y, I V S T A R. Ukraine's biggest telecom company. Did you know that, Pat? He's on the board. Mike Pompeo is on their board. And its parent company, Veon Veon. That gig alone is pulling $600,000 a year plus stock and bonus options and lands him millions. On top of that, his first impact investment scored 16 million in stock warrants and 3 million bonuses tied to a merger deal. So they're over there, we're trying to figure out, because think about it, everything is going good and then all of a sudden Zelensky does one of. And we looked it up. The most, the strongest and most major attack. Tom, if I'm not Rob, if I'm not mistaken, out of this entire war, this was the biggest thing. The. All the drones taking out these, what, nuclear airplanes. And it just seems a little weird. Trump has been fighting for peace. And I think Steve, behind closed doors, these guys are going over there. Lindsey Graham is a freaking warhawk. They want war. These guys work for companies that are either getting consulting with defense contractors. Tom. Or they work for the actual companies themselves. And I don't see this getting good. Putin's been quiet as hell, and I'm telling you right now, he's not going to stay quiet for long. And this is what they were talking about, about pushing into World War Three. And we're on the cusp. I think we're right. Right there, because Putin. We don't. We know he's a. He's a gangster, just like America's gangster with the government. He hasn't said anything. And I'm worried that something big is about to happen, and it could turn into something ugly.

[E]

We won't talk about it. And it's Vietnam by proxy. Remember Vietnam? We will only send advisors in here because the French have failed. So we will send advisors, and then we'll supply limited arms. And then Biden said, well, we're not giving you big weapons because we don't want to have a proxy war going with Russia. Remember that. We're not going to send you big things. And they're like, we need big things. We want the. And we want the other planes. Remember that. We don't want those planes. We want the other planes. Hey, can we have the F15Es? You know, the electronic countermeasures, just like the Israelis have? Can we have the nice stuff? No, no, no, no, no. Can we have the look down shutdown radar? No, no, no. We can give you the basic stuff.

[Stephen A. Smith]

And.

[E]

And we were all that. And then, guess what? We went all in. We're all in. This is the military industrial complex. I look at these things from deeper angles every now and then. Look at it. You know what they have right now? They have a test bed for all their new stuff in a war theater called Ukraine. And I believe that these folks are kind of leftovers from the post Reagan era, because, remember, Reagan was there not to stop a country. He was there to stop an ideology when he went up against Gorbachev. And so he had an effective outcome against an ideology, and he breaks up the Soviet Union. Now it's like we've got this old thing, must kill Russia, must kill Russia, must kill Russia. And it's bothersome to me. And then you see these people that represent these areas. That's not Marco Rubio. If you go back just 20 years ago, it was rare that anybody usurped the position of the Secretary of State. That's the Secretary of state's trip. And then he would say, I'm taking a delegation. And he was like their tour guide. And it just disappoints me and bothers me because I believe that there are innocent people all in Ukraine. They're in the middle of this stuff.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Stephen A. What do you think?

[Stephen A. Smith]

It's tough because on one hand, I understand not having a nationalist perspective, having a globalist perspective and being concerned about the world as a whole in terms of our ability to do business with others and represent our own individual interests. But to me, nothing should come before country. And what I mean by that is Trump, whether you like it or not, is the president of the United States. And if we're going over there as elected officials, our job should be, if not to represent him, it's to convince him stateside to see your way of thinking. You don't go over there against the interest of the president of the United States and think that there's not going to be football. I'm not saying that you don't agree with. You have to agree with him. I'm saying disagree with him here on these grounds, on this thing. You don't go over to another nation speaking against the interest of the person that you have in office. I don't like that because that's something that can be utilized to our detriment more likely than not. Having said that, I think that Ukraine is in a world of trouble. I know they've given Russia the battle of their lives. I understand that. But we also got to understand what's going on with Russia. You know, Bill O'Reilly brought up the Yalta Convention to me and wanted me to look that up. And then I was reminded about Church, Winston Churchill and, you know, and obviously Stalin at that particular time. What did Russia want? Russia Runner wanted all of Europe. Putin reminds me of that, because Stalin gave America the impression that we're willing to engage and have a democracy. You know, after World War II, in the aftermath of all of that and Hitler and all of this stuff, what they said was, this is what we're willing to do. And then they went against the interest of the United States and they broke promises per se. This is what they were told. If I'm, if I, if I've got my history wrong, please educate me. That's what I was told. Stalin did that. What is Putin's been, what has been his number one mission according to all the reports since he's gained power. He was appalled at what happened in 1991. He was appalled that Reagan was able to tell Gorbachev turned it tear down that wall and ultimately in 1991 that it happened and the dissolution of the Soviet Union as we once knew it occurred. What has he been On a mission to do since 2008. Crimea, 2013, 2014, same thing. Obama was in office at that time. Did they address it with the earth, the level of urgency that it deserved? No. Did Biden address it with the level of urgency that it deserved? No. Even though he was willing to finance Ukraine in terms of, terms of weapons and money and stuff like that, there was stuff that could have been done years prior to that that folks in both, on both sides of the aisle didn't do. And now the American people finds itself in a situation where we're dependent on Trump, you understand, to resolve this issue. And Trump bloviating the way. That's because that's what he's made. I'm not talking about anything else but blovia. I can end this. I've got a relationship with these people. Well, there are people that believe that, that believed you got this kind of relationship with Putin, you can help put a stop to this. No, you can't. Because Putin has come and his mission is far greater than friendships or anything like that. Assuming he has any. This man, I'm not, you know, whatever they want to call him, kgb, former KGB murderer, all this other stuff they try to say about it, I don't know what it is. I do know this. This man is on a mission to reclaim Europe. He wants it all. He's not going to stop most of it. He's not going to stop at Ukraine. He's not going to stop. I don't believe, I do believe that all my heart. Poland, Finland, whatever it is, whatever's in that area, okay, he's not going to stop. Russia at one time made up a sixth of the world's population. The dissolution has fragmented them. They're on a mission to restore thanks to its rightful order in their eyes. And for us to not pay attention to that and the kind of impact it could have on our global affairs in terms of how we want to do business, in terms of what has assisted greatly in making us prosperous is something I think we need to pay attention to, Adam.

[Adam]

I mean, I think that's one thing's clear about Russia and it's. They're not as big and strong and as tough as they thought they were because they thought that this was going to be a David versus Goliath type thing. But it turns out it ain't some just like little kid with a slingshot. It's some grown ass Zielinski looking dude with billions of dollars and weaponry and drones from all their big rich homies from all around the World, namely the United States, Germany, the uk, France and the EU and NATO. That's quite the, that's quite the allies there. Now who are Russia's allies? Allies? They have Belarus, North Korea and China. Kinda sound like they're natural allies. They share a border and there's some issues there.

[Stephen A. Smith]

But.

[Adam]

Russia thought that they'd be done with this war in 30 days. It's been three years and now they're apparently losing. So if I'm Putin, I'm looking at this as like, how is this little fruity two cakes out here? Former actor plant in Ukraine beating me, KGB dictator Putin. And my biggest fear is that he's going to do something real stupid.

[Vinny]

Can I ask pretty soon Tyson question because Pat brought this up and I'm, I genuinely want to know your, your thoughts on this. This, this was a major attack, okay. With, with probably a lot of extensive, you know, planning and all that stuff. Two questions. Do you think Trump, who's trying to do peace, knew that this was going to happen or knew that was going to go down? Okay, now they're approved or said no or fought back. And number two, if not, if not, Stephen, who has the type of power to go behind Trump and make this type of thing go down, meaning proxy Mike Pompeo, who has the power here to go and talk to this dude and be like, yo dog to Zelensky? This is what Pat talked about the other day. Go and do your thing, we got you. Trump ain't going to be mad. No one's going to be mad. Go yo, go bomb the shit out of him.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Go ahead, ask him. First question is when you say, do I think Trump knew? Do I think Trump knew what?

[Vinny]

That, that Zelensky was going to go do this all bombing on Russia with all the airplanes and like that big ass thing that we just saw?

[Stephen A. Smith]

I think that Trump knew because I think that if Zelensky did that without him knowing, it'll make it that much more difficult to come back and ask for assistance from the United States of America. But in the same breath, it was a reaction to what Russia had done to them recently as well. So I think you have to pay attention to that as it pertains to power, as it pertains to influencing Trump. I think the elected officials on Capitol Hill, the Mike Johnson's of the world and others who have the power to get in his way, I think they can have an effect on him. But I also think that, listen, we can underestimate this, but we just got to be honest. He cares about perception. Trump cares about legacy. I think he cares about those things. So when I see a guy like a Sean Hannity, when I see a guy like a Bill O'Reilly and people like that, you know, when I did the town hall with Chris Cuomo. Trump's not calling in if Bill O'Reilly doesn't get him to call in. He called in cuz Bill O'Reilly got him to call in, you understand? And you have people that, that are in office, that have connections to people who have a voice. If I, Again, I'm not interested, but if I was a president, if I was the President of the United States, I'm a busy man and I'm not talking to everybody any damn way, but I'm answering Patrick Bet Davis call. He can call me, you understand? Chris Cuomo can call me. A Sean Hannity can call me. You can call me. I know you. All of a sudden I get in the office and I don't know you when you already have this prolific voice reaching millions upon millions of people to potentially persuade them to see my way of thinking, why would ignore that prowess? So again, it takes a combination. But to summarily dismiss that, that is a possibility. I certainly wouldn't do it. I'm telling you, and I'm not gonna say any more than I'm about to say, but I'm telling you, those names that I mentioned. Oh, they talked to, they talked to the President. They talk to him a lot. Okay. So they have an idea of what he's thinking, what he's feeling, and they certainly speak to him and let him know their thoughts. Now, he's gonna make his own decisions, but ultimately, you listen to who you listen to, and you're impacted by who you're impacted by.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Yeah, I, I, I don't know. I'm gonna be curious to know how ugly this could get.

[Stephen A. Smith]

I think it's gonna get ugly.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Yeah. How nasty could get. And now UK's getting up there. Pompeo. Why is he out there? Yeah. What are you doing out there like that? Yeah. A couple things I don't understand.

[Stephen A. Smith]

And nobody's asking him to be with the President. But you don't go to a foreign land to be against the president undermining.

[Vinny]

Blumenthal is a Democrat. He's there with Lindsey Graham, who's a Republican. And they're, and you're, and you're trashing Trump in front of these people.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Like we know that they were trashing him now.

[Vinny]

Yeah, Blumenthal was. Blumenthal is anti bro. Blumenthal is as anti Trump as they get. And then you're there with Lindsey Graham, who is a Republican war hawk who's wearing, mind you, who's wearing the American flag with the Ukrainian pin still. And then Mike Pompeo, who both.

[Stephen A. Smith]

He.

[Vinny]

He had some neg once. He left Trump and left a secretary of state. He was bashing Trump. All right? And remember, he's the guy, too, that was on some. Let's go assassinate Julian Assange. He's a. He's a.

[Stephen A. Smith]

But what's the most important thing, guys? I'll ask y' all this. I'm. It's a genuine question. Is it making sure we don't have to give but so much more money to Ukraine, or is it making sure that Russia doesn't expand and become significantly more expansive in its quest that I believe is to recapture a lot, if not all, of what they lost with the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

[Adam]

Well, I don't know how they're going to capture all of Europe, half Europe, even two countries in Europe, because they can't even take one.

[Stephen A. Smith]

I agree.

[Adam]

They can't take Ukraine. They can't even get to Kiev. And my biggest question here, maybe I'm naive. I don't understand. Why are we criticizing a country that's at war with another country? Oh, my God. Why would they blow up all their planes? Because they've been at war for three years. Maybe that's why. Why would they do this during stalled peace talks? Well, maybe because Putin just bombed the out of Kiev and they're teaching that guy a lesson.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Right?

[Stephen A. Smith]

I don't know.

[Adam]

Maybe when a bully punches you in the mouth, you punch him in the mouth ten times harder. I don't know. Where did I hear that? From Trump. A million times. So I don't feel bad for, by the way. And it's not like Ukraine invaded Russia.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Let's also.

[Adam]

Russia invaded Ukraine.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Let's also remember, I didn't land on Plymouth Rock.

[Adam]

Stephen.

[Stephen A. Smith]

A. And to your point, Vinnie, get him a downer. If you think about how Trump Let's. Let's call it what it is, we can't, like, listen, no matter how much you support Trump, you can't like every damn thing.

[Vinny]

I don't.

[Patrick Bet-David]

So.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Exactly. So I didn't like what he did with Zelensky and the Oval Office.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Office.

[Stephen A. Smith]

I thought that was a bad look. Oh, I loved it. I hated it. And I'm gonna tell you, I loved it. Let me tell you why. Okay, I hate it. A couple reasons. Number one, who the hell Are you jd? Vince. Who are you? I know you're vice president. You're the vice President of the United States. Well, the president was right there, didn't need you to talk. But you were talking, and what did you do? You diverted away from the issue. Talk about you should be grateful. You should be saying thank you. Really. And then you have Republican officials. He didn't have a suit on. Really?

[Patrick Bet-David]

Really?

[Stephen A. Smith]

We talk about war. Listen, it was one of them, too. Damn it. The point is that. Oh, he didn't have on a suit. Really? That's what we're doing. We're talking about a man whose country was getting bombed every damn month, and you're talking about him not wearing a suit and not saying thank you enough.

[Adam]

But he came here begging as if. As if we owe it to him.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Well, again, have a little gratitude, little dude. Well, he was saying that again, if Russia. It may not be a problem for you now, but it might be a problem for you later if you let stuff like this slide. A lot of people felt that there was validity to that argument. I don't know whether. But they're saying potentially yes, because we got something called oceans. That's what he was saying. He said, you don't feel it now, but you will.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Yeah. I mean, look, we can sit here and go through painting this guy as the bully in this picture. Okay, fine. Back in 2000, he asked Clinton, Hey, I don't mind joining NATO. Oh, yeah, you would. Yeah. Five minutes that he calls back. Yeah, not right now. Maybe later on. Why don't you want him? Who said no? But who said no? You can. You can go back.

[Adam]

The premise of that doesn't make sense, though. The whole reason that NATO was created was so Russia wouldn't take.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Bill Clinton told him Russia could join NATO before pulling back hours later. Why?

[Adam]

So then what would be the point of NATO?

[Patrick Bet-David]

That's the point.

[Adam]

Russia joins NATO. No, no, but NATO dissolves, does it not? But guess the whole point of NATO was to counteract Russia.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Adam, If. Let's just say we have a late security going on in our community because there's a rapist in our community that is walking around, and he's been spotted five times, and he's a known rapist. Every night we choose two fathers to go walk around the community and make sure they're safe. Every night we do this for 60 days. 45 days later, we find that the guy's dead. Are we still doing that? No, we stop. What's the point? NATO is not needed anymore. If he's telling you I want to join you. So don't tell me. No, there's people that want this war to continue because it's a big business model. So there's an element of this that we can sit here. Who knows what kind of money they're making on the back end. Have you seen what Dick Cheney did? Have you seen what these guys did with $3 trillion of money has been made missing Where? Oh, it's just. We're missing. I mean, look, I mean, we are. We're always missing money, right? You always got 100 grand. 100 grand is missing. A million dollars is missing. $10,000 missing. No. This is so deep that my curious side just wants to know. Someone behind closed doors is playing. Trump's got ratings like he's never had before. Egg prices are down. Tariff is bringing revenues like we've never seen before. $21.7 billion, $22 billion in a month more than ever before. We've never seen tariff revenue like this.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Deficit lowering.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Deficit deficit is not necessarily lowering yet, but tariff revenue. You need revenue coming in. Revenue's increasing from tariffs.

[Stephen A. Smith]

So you support his tariff wars?

[Patrick Bet-David]

I for sure support us getting more tariff revenue.

[Stephen A. Smith]

I agree with that, but I. No, no, that's not what I asked you. I'm asking you, did you support his tariff war, meaning that his, his, his, his plan going after everybody instead of just China?

[Patrick Bet-David]

I do. I do like that he did that. And for me, it was a. And the reason for that is the following reason. Trump is a guy that knows how to create peer pressure for people to take action. Trump's the type of guy that he'll sit in a room and he'll say something. It's like, so, what's your show ranked? You know he's beating you, right? So how do you feel about the fact that his show is beating you? I saw your viewership was down last week to Stephen and what happened with you. By the way, who's this guy with the new podcaster here that's beating you? Is he going to take over? That's how he is. But if you're the only person in the room, he can't do that to you because you're China. So he needs all these other guys in there to go like this. That's his style. Doesn't mean it works with everybody.

[Stephen A. Smith]

What about disruption of the market? What about the fact that you are coming across so haphazard that the market doesn't know what to do? And as a result, it gets people to be. Be Afraid to invest and fuel and stir the system.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Can you tell me why the market is doing good? Can you tell me why numbers are looking?

[Stephen A. Smith]

I'm not challenging. I'm asking. I'm genuinely asking these questions because I don't know.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Yeah, but the question then becomes, for me, when I look at enemies around the world, who's the top three enemies for America?

[Stephen A. Smith]

China.

[Patrick Bet-David]

China's number one.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Iran.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Iran, Russia. Who's your third? I don't even know if we'll put Russia number three. I think Russia's top five.

[Vinny]

Okay.

[Patrick Bet-David]

But I don't know if I put number three. But I know for a fact China and Iran are top two.

[Adam]

Iran's first. China's a competitor, not a friend.

[Stephen A. Smith]

I'm not saying Mexico, but some would because of the borders.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Sure, but some would. But watch some wood. So when we say China and Iran, and I know, I saw what you did last summer, you know, what's that movie? I know what you did last summer. I. I know what you did last, you know, election 2020 with COVID and all that stuff. I don't trust China. I'm going to expose the hell out of them. Look what happened. 60 million iPhones were being produced and manufactured in China that moved to India. Now he's trying to bring that to us a little bit. You think China is not experiencing a little bit of a downfall right now? The challenges they're facing?

[Stephen A. Smith]

We want consumers.

[Patrick Bet-David]

I don't have any problem with what happened with tariff I with China.

[Stephen A. Smith]

I don't.

[Patrick Bet-David]

The concern I have now, the concern I have. Look, what he did with Canada is like, look, you guys don't spend a lot of money on military. I'm willing to give you a golden dome. You pay 68 billion. I'll take care of you as well. But you have to become the 51st state. I don't mind all these pushing and all these things that he's doing. He's a massive disruptor. But the data's showing he's making progress. You can say a lot of things you want to say. The average person goes to the market to buy some eggs for their kids. Last year was 655. This year's 252. The average person, and that's bottom 80%. Bottom 80% is not sitting there asking about tariffs. Bottom 80% is saying, why is a dozen eggs now 255. Why are gas prices down? That's what the bottom 80% of the.

[Stephen A. Smith]

So gas prices are down, prices of eggs are down, and the media has Been ignoring it.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Of course the media has been ignoring it. Why would they be celebrating these types of things? Media wouldn't be celebrating this kind of stuff. But it's so embarrassing now that even Harry Anton on CNN is saying this, and he says, I don't understand why his popularity is going higher.

[Vinny]

He's shocked.

[Patrick Bet-David]

They don't understand why is his popularity going higher. They're confused.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Are you guys concerned? Again, I'm asking questions even though I know you guys are interviewing me. But I'm just curious because I want to learn. Are you guys concerned at all about the enemy being primarily within, meaning the destructive tense? Like, for right now, we just saw in Boulder, Colorado, somebody throw. I don't know if it was a Molotov cocktail or whatever, at a cloud. 55 years old, pro Israel supporters. We see the Israeli. I don't call it even the Israeli Palestinian conflict. I call it the Israeli Hamas conflict because of what Hamas did in 2023, on October 7th, I see all of that stuff, but I also see a whole bunch of. Of protesters in the streets of America. And we see the Jewish community highlighting, you know, highlighting the issue of anti Semitism. Anti Semitism proliferation in this country.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Sure.

[Stephen A. Smith]

And it seems to be getting more and more chaotic by the week. Any concern about that at all? When we're thinking about the kind of issues that we're discussing.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Let me ask you this right now. With Trump having the victories that he's having, what are your deceptive ways to disrupt them with the momentum that he has? Because if you're part of the Democratic Party, you know what your record is right now?

[Stephen A. Smith]

Oh, for something.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Yeah. What are the worst NBA records of all time? Was it the Pistons? Who was it? There's a couple teams that had these terrible 13 end, you know, pistons two years ago.

[Adam]

That's one type of record.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Rival KJ, 28 straight games a couple years.

[Patrick Bet-David]

That's. Oh, there you go, Charlotte. Holy.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Okay.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Philadelphia 76ers. Damn.

[Stephen A. Smith]

That was 2012. Blackouts, you know, not lockout.

[Patrick Bet-David]

But yeah, look at 16, 10 and 72. Philadelphia. Let's just say that's the one to go with, right? 10 and 72. Holy. That's the Democratic Party right now. They're getting their asses handed to them. So guess what you need to do. I remember one time I'm walking with one of the NBA owners. You know who he is? And you know, and I said, so how are you guys gonna beat the Golden State Warriors? He winks. He says, all we need is an ankle injury by the way this is a pretty well known owner. Like what a dark motherf Ing. That's all we need, man. This is how this works. So. You freaking kidding me? He says all you need is an ankle injury and we'll get past them. Okay? So guess what they need right now? They need an ankle injury. What's an ankle injury? If Russia. These guys go at it, shit hits the fan.

[Stephen A. Smith]

He said he was gonna say. He said he's gonna stop the war and he hasn't.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Exactly.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Who looks bad if the Israeli Hamas conflict continues to go on? Who said that he was gonna finish?

[Patrick Bet-David]

Who looks bad? That's the point. So if I'm the Democratic Party and I can't win here with policies, I have to show that this guy has nothing under control. I can't go into 2016, model with, you know, the 2020, the protesting, black Lives Matter, all this stuff. We've already played that card. That's not going to work. I can't go through the insurrection. I can't do the COVID Hey, man, let's start a war and talk about this. Is the president that said he was a president of peace. He's the president of war. You know how Democrats would run with that? Like this? Game over. How does he. How does he rebuttal?

[Stephen A. Smith]

That's not going to affect him.

[Patrick Bet-David]

You don't think it will for the midterms?

[Stephen A. Smith]

Let me explain why. Yeah, because ultimately you have to deal with what you're doing in this country if you're a Democrat, when you're making the argument against him. Yes, we don't like what we're seeing going on with Israel and Hamas. No, we don't like what we see going on with Ukraine and Russia. What's going on here and what role did you play in what's going on here? Because he's going to have a rebuttal to that argument. Now it gets a bit dicey. That's why the midterms are so pivotal. See, if the Democrats win seats in the House and the Senate in 2026 and they gain some power now, they have the power to disrupt and get in his way as opposed to just whistling into the wind. And then all of a sudden, the AOCs, the Bernie Sanders, Jasmine Crocketts and others, now it becomes a bit more formidable. Blumenthal as well, and others. It gets a bit more formidable because he's going to. You need stuff passed in order to get things done. You can't rely on just executive orders. You actually have to govern and you got to go across the aisle, and that's going to be a challenge. So anything that he's doing right now, he has to make sure he's doing it to ensure that he's going to win. He's going to help his party win the midterms. If he doesn't pull that off, then it's going to get real interesting.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Stephen A. If war your tape breaks out, they're gonna say it's all on him and the place.

[Stephen A. Smith]

I'm not saying they're not gonna say that. I'm asking you, is it gonna work?

[Vinny]

Oh, yeah. 100.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Is it gonna work? Is it going to. Is it gonna lose him votes?

[Patrick Bet-David]

Did Covet work?

[Stephen A. Smith]

Okay.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Did Covet work? Of course.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Covid was different because covet directly impacted us.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Did protest.

[Stephen A. Smith]

We were the ones that couldn't come outside. We were the ones that were stuck in the house, couldn't go to work.

[Patrick Bet-David]

You know what I heard? A lot of good Republican friends of mine that voted for him kept saying, with the protesting happen, they kept saying this, Pat, I'm not gonna lie to you, bro. You know, I voted for him. I like him. I'm just. I can't vote for him because I can't have the protesting going on. It's not safe for me right now. It's coming into our city.

[Stephen A. Smith]

But again, because it was coming into American cities.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Sure, sure. So.

[Stephen A. Smith]

So when you think of Israeli Hamas conflict, where you have pro Palestinian protesters, not just on universities, but protesting throughout the streets of America, then it could be problematic if that doesn't happen. But there's a.

[Adam]

There's a deeper reason for that. Do you notice that there's this weird, strange marriage between progressive woke leftists and jihadists and Islamists? Is that weird? You never get weirded out by gays for Gaza or queers for Palestine.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Confess I didn't pay any attention.

[Adam]

Okay, there's. That's a symptom of a much larger problem because. Go. Good luck being gay in Gaza. It ain't going to work out too well for you. I don't think you can actually legally be gay in most countries in the Middle East. So why is that? What is that strange marriage? Well, maybe it's not just haphazardly. Maybe there's a bigger, bigger reason behind the scenes. You talk about people pulling the strings, puppets pulling the strings. There's a clear, clear plan to tear down the West. And who is the leader of the West? Who's the best from east to west with the biggest thing on their chest? It's the usa, baby. So when the, when the USSR dissolved, you think they just said, all right, we're going to stop doing communism?

[Stephen A. Smith]

Nope.

[Adam]

They align themselves with jihadists and Islamists. So there's this weird thing going on with Iran, Russia and China. And they're all in a room and they're sitting there like, yes, we're going to bring down United States, bring down West. And then the Chinese are like, oh, yeah, we're going to do it. And they were like, how are we going to do it? Well, let's globalize the Intifada. You ever heard this word before? What do you think that means? Let's bring chaos to the West. Look who is burning the American flag? That's the problem. Start there. Everyone wants to look. Oh, this is what's going on. Look at what's burning the flag. Who's chanting death to America. Who is bringing fentanyl to America? Who is literally chanting globalized antifada. That's what's bringing down the West.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Here's my challenge.

[Adam]

Yes.

[Stephen A. Smith]

And I'm only saying this because I'm open to being educated. I don't know. It's not an issue that I really talk about because I see how passionate folks are along religious grounds. You know, it's our land. We are, you know, the descendants of this place. We belong here. You know, 1967, 1948, you know, they throw out these years. What happens. The Gaza Strip. We get that. There's a lot of things that get talked about, and it's. It's dangerous conversation because you can utter the wrong word and everybody's ready to tear you down. Here's where people that I know come from that don't study the issues the way you guys do and the way I'm attempting to. They look at Israel and they say, you damn right there's anti Semitism. It's not right. It shouldn't be happening. You attack their country on October 7, 2023, you kidnap over a thousand people, you kill folks, et cetera, et cetera. How dare you? And you see folks complaining about anti Semitism, justifiably so in the eyes of a lot of people. Then you hear, pro Palestinian folks, pro. They say, you don't see that. STEPHEN A. You don't see this is genocide. Benjamin Netanyahu, to say he didn't want this all along. STEPHEN A. What are you doing? What are you going to talk about this? I've had people approach me and ask me to talk about it and challenge me to talk about. And I'm Like, I don't know enough, and I'm not doing that. But the point is, they say stuff like this. Look at what's happening in Gaza. Look at what's happening. Just the other day, was it today, this morning, or whatever bombs were being dropped or whatever US aid was talking about, lives were lost, et cetera. They're saying all of these things. You look at the rubble and you're saying, that's unlivable. You go back to the press conference that Trump gave where he's talking about how, let's have a big, beautiful resort here. Let's be really, it's not livable there. And, and why was I appalled by what he said? Issues too sensitive to be bringing up a resort. Of course, a nice resort would be. It would be great, of course, if it was prosperous. You know, there's a lot, there's a lot of people that could benefit from that. But you have folks from both sides coming at you. One is saying, with a Jewish community, and we're experiencing anti Semitism, we didn't instigate this, et cetera, et cetera. And then the other side is saying, why are we starting at October 7, there were decades and decades of turmoil that exist, where people were being displaced, where homes were being destroyed, where women and children were losing their lives, et cetera. What about all of that? I'm telling you, as somebody who's neither Jewish, clearly is not from Israel nor Palestine, you know, nor a member of the Palestinian community to listen to those things. You're desperate for some finite facts that no one can dispute and somebody educating the rest of the world, what is really the issue here and who's really on the side of right or wrong? Because if we're being honest, there's a lot of people out there that just don't know.

[Patrick Bet-David]

I think that's a good assessment on where, you know, people are. More people are not. But at the end of the day, what ends up happening with time is time reveals a lot of things to see who was right on what position. Let's go to a couple other stories before we wrap up. Stephen A. This one story here is with Diddy. Video comes out where the President's being interviewed and he says, you know what? You know, Diddy said some good things about me back in the days. You know, I would definitely consider pardoning him. And Rob, I don't know if you have the clip or not. If you want to play the clip, there's a clip of him. He's literally being asked the one right there if you can play this clip. Diddy was a good friend of yours back then. He has since found himself in some very serious legal trouble. Would you ever consider pardoning him?

[Stephen A. Smith]

I. Well, nobody's asked. You had to be the one to ask, Peter. But nobody's asked. But I know people are thinking about it. I know they're thinking about it. I think people have been very close to asking. First of all, I look at what's happening and I haven't been watching it too closely, although it's certainly getting a lot of coverage. I haven't seen him, I haven't spoken to him in years. He used to really like me a lot.

[Patrick Bet-David]

But I think when I ran for.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Politics, he sort of that relationship busted up. From what I read. I don't know, he didn't tell me that. But I'd read some little bit nasty statements in the paper. All of a sudden, you know, it's different. You become a much different person when you run for politics and you do what's right. I could do other things and I'm sure he'd like me and I'm sure other people would like me, but it wouldn't be as good for a couple country as we said, our country is doing really well.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Pause Right there, Rob. $0.50 response and he says vow to dissuade President Trump from pardoning Diddy if convicted in his federal sex trafficking, a racketeering trial, stating on Instagram, I'm going to reach out. So he knows how I feel about this guy and said some real bad things about Trump. And he would consider pardoning, he would consider combs, who would consider pardoning anyone who was being mistreated, not Puff Daddy. And President Trump would ask you obviously give the answer. What are your thoughts with this with Diddy case, you know, with pardoning, with all the stories that we hear about.

[Stephen A. Smith]

I don't want to hear about pardons from Trump based on who he likes or who's complimentary to him. You're the command in chief. If you believe there's a viable case to pardon somebody, make your call. If you believe there's not, make your call. But it shouldn't be predicated on. He was very nice to me. He's always very good to me. And I mean very nice things. He's very nice thing about me. Just like, you know, I remember when he was at the NABJ national association of Black Journalist Conference and Rachel Scott, who's an outstanding young reporter for abc, she was up there hosting the event and she went right into it asking him a question. And his exact words were, that might be one of the nastiest questions. You didn't even say, hello, how are you? And I just cracked up laughing, you know, because you didn't say hello. So when he came on News Nation, I said, hello, Mr. President, hello.

[Adam]

Because you got respect.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Well, not just that, but I'm just saying I understand that's how you treat people. That's how you treat people. But I'm just like, so you should. That's how you. That's what you focused on, was my point. I say all of that to say so much about him. Elijah Cummings, God rest his soul, former representative out of Maryland, whether he Trump, you know, he passes away, you can't even say, my condolences. He was never nice to me. What? You know, like, come on, man. I mean, that's the kind of stuff about him that drives me crazy because it's petty. And this ain't something to be petty about. I want to remind her, listen, if Diddy's innocent of sex trafficking and racketeering, those are federal charges. Very, very serious. Okay? If you found innocent, God bless you. Live the rest of your life. We saw that video with you beating your girl. Ain't no coming back from that.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Nope.

[Stephen A. Smith]

We heard testimony that your own defense didn't deny where not only were sexual acts taking place with sex workers as well as yourself urinating in her mouth, you're not coming back from that. You might have people that may be committed to convicting him just because they said, I'll give a damn what the charges, his ass gotta go to jail. It's possible with a jury, they can tell you everything, you prove the case. They might not think that, but because your behavior, your acts were so egregious, they said, hell with this. I remember years ago, guys, when I saw a video of R. Kelly, and R. Kelly was having sex with a clearly an underaged girl. The first words out of my mouth is, there's gonna be a prosecutor in his ass within the week. And our second, third words out of my mouth was, I bet you it's a black one, because that was a young black girl. And our third thing I said is, why? Because that man probably got a daughter. You got a daughter. And you see, just think about all of us, who we are as men. You know, you brought up my mother, my upbringing, all this. All of us as men. Just think for a second, black, white, Hispanic, don't matter. You have a daughter and you see somebody else's daughter in a video Being treated like that, what you want to do. One of the things that I get upset about when the issue of domestic violence come up, I get really, really upset when people act like most men would turn a blind eye and a deaf ear and okay, that no, most men would be ready to kick a dude's ass 100%. If you saw a dude, you could be walking down the street. And if you saw a dude beating a woman's behind, you probably put yourself in danger to stop him, because, you know, there's certain things you just don't do. And what I'm saying is, if you're a juror on a Diddy case and you've heard the testimony and you've seen it, you got to wait for the defense to make their case in fairness to him. And if he's innocent, he's innocent. You let him live. But the video that he has acknowledged, he was in a very bad place. He was effed up and blah, blah, blah. And the testimony that piggybacked off that video from her on the stand, you ain't getting passed. And I think that in jail or not, he's staying forever. And I personally have a hard time believing he's going to get off because I believe that the jury is going to look at him and say, we don't give a damn about the. The sex trafficking and racketeering. The specificity of the charge, what we've heard and what we've seen. You deserve to be in jail knowing all of those things. I'm just saying, if you're going to make a decision to pardon him, if you're Trump, it needs to be because you think that the case wasn't strong enough. It don't need to be. He was very nice to me. It was. He used to be very nice.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Funny. These are two clips of Diddy, what he said about Trump. Here's what Diddy said about Trump.

[Stephen A. Smith]

This man is elected. We're not standing by. No more getting killed. We not scared of anybody standing up and standing by.

[Patrick Bet-David]

We're on the verge of a race war. This is when he endorsed Biden or.

[Stephen A. Smith]

White men like Trump need to be banished.

[Adam]

What year was this?

[Stephen A. Smith]

That way of thinking, 2020.

[Patrick Bet-David]

It's real. Like Trump need to be banished. Yeah. We don't have no choice. You know what I'm saying?

[Stephen A. Smith]

You can say what you want about Biden. I. I can't say I love the.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Pick either, but, hey, we got to get him in office, and then we.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Got to hold him accountable.

[Patrick Bet-David]

All right?

[Adam]

And here's the pause that.

[Patrick Bet-David]

What's this? We're in a war.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Number one, Trump gotta go. And then what? Anything that's, you know, that is about oppressing us and keeping us down. Nah, I want. I want to break his. I want to break his neck. I want to run it out of town.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Have you ever interacted with him?

[Stephen A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Did he.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Yeah, I've seen him a couple events.

[Patrick Bet-David]

How was he with you?

[Stephen A. Smith]

Oh, he was always cool with me because he wanted to be an owner, an NBA owner. He was trying to become an NBA owner for. For the Charlotte. For the Charlotte Hornets.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Hornets.

[Stephen A. Smith]

You know, once Bob Johnson gave it up and then Michael Jordan was obviously talking about giving it up. I mean, he. He definitely wanted in. Interesting on that. The NBA had its reservations. I don't know why, but obviously one would deduce maybe somebody knew something that we would ultimately end up finding out. And I don't know the answer to that question. What I would tell you is this. You know, listen, as a black man, I'm gonna tell you right now, and I don't know if anybody admits this, but let's talk about Trump for a second and what makes us uncomfortable policy wise. We've complained about a multitude of folks in office. We complain about the Republicans, in fairness to y' all, and then a Democrat gets into office, and then we find out we had a whole bunch of complaints, except we complained about the Republicans before they get to the office. We wait until the. The Democrats leave office to complain. You know what I'm saying? It's a double standard that needs to be fixed. No doubt about it. But what I've often tried to say to people, the Trump that I communicated with, I never viewed, never thought of as racist. What I think about him is opportunistic. He is the kind of individual that if you told him, you can get everything you want if you appeal to these Democrats, but the Republicans are turned against you. He don't give a damn if the Democrats are what he needs to get what he wants. He's narcissistic like that. He's about getting what he wants, what he believes is in the best interest, whether it's of himself, his, the country, or anything like that. That's how we who have experienced with him in the past, that's how we know him to be. The uncomfortable part about that is you don't get to look at that and then bring up racism because you don't like what he's doing when you know he's opportunistic. If you Said if you said that if Trump, what? Let's just say, for example, black folks was going to determine the outcome of the terraform, and he had to go in, in a piece to a bunch of black people and alienate Hispanics and Asians or alienate the Jewish community or whatever, and that was gonna get him what he wants. That's what he would do. That's the Trump I knew. That's the trope a lot of people knew. And so we may not like it. There's a lot that I don't like about it, but I think it's real easy to just lean on that. And I think it's a mistake. Let me tell you something. I'm an ambassador for HBCU Week. I do everything that I can to contribute to historically black colleges and universities. There may be a point in time I got to go and try to communicate with this man. How the hell am I gonna do that? Oh, man, he's a racist bastard. He's a Nazi. He's this, he's that. But let me have my hand out for your help for the HBCUs. We gotta think, we gotta be smarter than that, and we gotta be bigger than that. And understand in politics and in business and stuff like that, we're not gonna always hear whatever we want to hear. We're not gonna always get everything that we want. But the prize, the objective, has to be bigger than us as individuals. We don't do a good enough job of understanding.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Stephen A. Do you fear? You know, when I've watched you 20 years.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Patrick Bet-David]

And I've seen when the black community comes after you and it gets uncomfortable for you, you're very comfortable in every single situation I've seen you in, except when the black community comes after you. And part of it is I'm Armenian, I'm Assyrian, so I understand heritage. And this is who I am. This is my identity. I totally get it. Is there a level of responsibility or fear where you feel like, hey, and when it comes down to color and it comes down to this, it's color before America. It's color before good policies. Do you see it that way?

[Stephen A. Smith]

No, no, no, I don't have. Fear is not the word. I'm not scared. What I would tell you is that when my own community has come after me in the past is hurt, there's genuine pain. Because I know how much I love my black people. I know what we've endured. I know what personal sacrifices I've made in my career just to help my community. And when that is ignored, when that is glossed over, when there's this pretension that it's pretend that it didn't happen. It hurts. Because it's like, wait a minute. I could have shut my mouth, kept quiet, collected the dollars, and been on my damn way. But I put a lot on the line by willing to put myself front and center to fight for these issues. Because I know I never fight against my folks. When I'm sitting up there and I'm calling out folks within my community, I never call out. Cause I don't speak for the whole community or whatever. But when I call out individuals with the mistakes that they make who emanate from our community, I'm not calling them out to condemn them. I'm calling them out to say, stop before you condemn yourself to a point that you can't return from. Because I want us to prosper. I want us to succeed. I don't want it to be at the expense of anybody else. I'm not anti anybody. But am I pro black? Yes. And proudly so. I root for us. I want us to succeed. I want us to prosper. I don't want white folks to go, bro. I don't want Benny to do worse than me. I just don't want to do worse than him. I don't want to do worse than Adam. I want to do worse than. But I want to do worse than Tom. I want to live just as well as y' all. You stand up there in a private jet, damn it. I want to be a private jet. You got, you, you. You got a Lamborghini Dam. But I want one. I want to be able to get one. I might not want that specific ride, but I want. I want everything anybody else would want. And so when I'm looking at us as a folk, as a people, I'm saying, I'm giving you a heads up. I'm hip to the game. I've been in corporate America for 30 years. I got a clue. I got an idea of how things are done, why they're done, the thought process behind it. If I'm around Adam and Pat and Vinnie and Tom, and there's an education that I'm receiving. I'm the type of guy that leaves from here and goes out into my community to say, you see the game, they tipped us to, to, then you're going to pay attention to. You going to ignore it, because guess what? Y' all ain't stupid. Y' all happen to have love for me, so you'll give. You'll make me Hip to something I didn't know. You're educating and edifying me in hopes that I will go out there and spread the wealth so we got more people that are being like minded, smart minded, intellectual, thoughtful, calculating, and how they go about doing things so we can all benefit. But if I don't do that, and I'm all about me, like some of, like some people are who will remain nameless in our industry to know good bastards that they are, okay, that's them. I'm not that guy. And so when I'm about that and I can point to what it has cost me in my career, endorsement dollars, contracts, all of this stuff, job opportunities, all because I was outspoken, I was in your face. I was defiant, I had courage. I wasn't scared because I was thinking about more than just myself. And then my own community turns against me. And you associates me with names like Sellout, Uncle Tom. Hell yeah, that shit hurt. It hurt for a long time. It's just that I recognized along the way that nobody was saying this about me when I was failing. Nobody was saying this about me when I didn't have shit. They said it about me after I had ascended and while I was continuing to ascend. And sometimes that's the game. That's how it goes. And you got to have the tough enough skin to take it. And I do.

[Patrick Bet-David]

And, and look, I mean, I, you know, Terrell Owens, Max, that whole exchange, you know, I can't go back one. You did 18 years ago, 17 years ago, like, hey, pull up your pants, do this, do that. You know, we got, maybe we got to vote Republican. Maybe we got, I don't know, I don't know. What was a small group setting, like 20 people sitting in front of you and this other African American man was asking you. Yeah, it's like, hey, sometimes you say stuff and no, I've been watching it for four minutes. And I think the biggest part is sometimes I'm Armenian and I'm Assyrian. There'll be comments that have been made and say, oh, he doesn't support the Armenian thing. He doesn't support the Assyrian thing. I'm like, yeah, it no longer does anything to me. I don't feel I have to make the case to win you over every time.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Right.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Because then that's a form of ownership you have on me. And I'm walking on eggshells. There's an Armenian, probably the most army. Not probably. He is the most Armenian successful man ever in business. He was the MGM guy. Who was the MGM guy? Gregorian at his peak, the guy was worth $10 billion. At 99 years old, he was still doing deals. This is who he was. What age did he die, Rob? Can you look up what age he died? 98. 98 years old, he dies, right? This guy was doing deals to the very end. You know how much money he gave to Armenia? So much money. Eventually, he's like, One thing I learned, no matter how much I give, you can never win him over. No matter how much I give, you can never win him over. I think that is a challenging thing to overcome. You do your best, you go about it, but if you constantly try to appease and conform, there's a form. Now, I know you're not. I know you're not. But what I'm saying is, if you do. And I'm talking. If general. Not you. If general to everybody.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Yeah.

[Patrick Bet-David]

If you try to do that, you know that guilt, that guilt. Constant guilt. You know, guilt. Guilt is such a. Can you pull a. Power versus force, Rob? Power versus force. You ever read this book, Power versus Ford. Chart. Type in chart. Look what level guilt is. It says that the level to go at. If you look at the third row, go right in the middle where it says yellow courage. That's the first row. Where when you get to courage, your level of consciousness increases below it. It's pride. I'm so important. Anger, desire, fear, grief, apathy. Guilt is the second lowest. And sometimes certain communities, they try to use that, and it produces the worst feeling. It's blame, destruction, evil, vindictive.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Look at what's at the top. Enlightened.

[Patrick Bet-David]

That's right.

[Stephen A. Smith]

And why is that so important? Because let me tell you something. So we're sitting here today, right? And all of us come from different backgrounds. I cannot tell you how much better my world got when I went away from this onus. I do feel this onus not to agree with my community, but to make sure that my community's voice is heard in terms of whatever their collective perspective is. So people will know. But I feel no obligation to agree with it. If I don't agree with it, I don't agree with it.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Why?

[Stephen A. Smith]

Because I have the faith in myself that I'm around the right people who give me a potpourri of thoughts. Adam is nothing like you. Yes, and Adam might not be alike. Tom and Vinny might not be alike. All of y' all bring something. So me being around y' all edifies me. I don't think like Sean Hannity, but hearing him think, I have a clue as to who people like him think and why they think the way that they think along with others. It could be a Cuomo. It could be a Bill O'Reilly. It could be a Mark Levin. It could be my boss, Jimmy Pitaro or Dave Roberts or anybody else learning from other people. I walk around edified because whatever decision I make, I know I was reasonable enough to listen and inhale and take all thoughts into consideration before I draw my conclusion. So even when you don't agree with me, you're not necessarily offended by it. And if you are offended, it's. It's usually for a reason other than what it should be. It's which makes it you your problem.

[Patrick Bet-David]

That's right.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Not mine.

[Patrick Bet-David]

There you go.

[Stephen A. Smith]

And that's how it goes.

[Patrick Bet-David]

And I think that's what we're going to finish it on. Gang. Hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as we did. And today's what? Today's Wednesday and they will get another episode tomorrow. Home team will be doing it as well. But Stephen A, my man. Much love, brother.

[Stephen A. Smith]

Same to you.

[Patrick Bet-David]

Great having you on again. Take care, everybody.

[Stephen A. Smith]

God bless. I do give a about what you give a about.