Momentum around ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith launching a White House run in 2028 has reached the ears of one of the Democratic Party’s top figures.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Thursday there is “a lot to like” about Smith after he was asked to comment about the growing “buzz” around the possibility of the pundit becoming a Democratic presidential candidate.
The New York representative said “2028 is a long way off” when asked, but said “there is a lot to like about Stephen A. Smith, including the fact that he and I are both diehard Knicks fans.”
Smith, 57, has flirted with the idea of a presidential run in recent weeks.
The Bronx native, famous for his boisterous rants on ESPN’s First Take and for his brutal takedowns of co-hosts, panelists, and even Sean Hannity, told CNBC he would “excel on television in a presidential debate.”
That, he suggested, would be key to landing him in the White House. Once there, he said he would get to work on improving lives not just in America, but around the globe.
“If you tell me that I could catapult to the White House, and I could be in a position to affect millions upon millions of lives, not just in America, but the world over, yeah, that’s something that I would entertain,” Smith said.
The X account “SASForPres,” which advocates for Smith’s candidacy, saw its follower count balloon from just 35 in late November to nearly 25,000 by Thursday. On Kalashi, a prediction market, Smith has the same odds of being the 2028 Democratic nominee as Kamala Harris.
Smith has not shied away from talking politics in MAGA 2.0, with him interviewing Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, days before the Super Bowl. He has also regularly bashed Trump on his show, before and after the 2024 election.
Smith had a particularly fiery message to Trump last week, telling the president he has no room to complain now that he is the White House and conservatives are the majority in Congress and the Supreme Court.
“Go ahead and govern so you have no excuses when things go awry,” he said. “You can’t say the dems were in your way... You can’t sit up there and blame anybody else if the economy falters, if inflation ultimately ravages our society, if things aren’t handled at the border, if the streets of America are still riddled with crime. You can’t sit up there and blame anybody else when you got everything you want and need in order to run a government the way you think a government should be run.”
Smith said he voted for Harris in November and posted way back in 2009 that he “loved hearing Bernie Sanders. He personifies my views as an Independent.”
Smith has had some controversy over the years that Republicans would surely attack him on. That includes remarks he made on First Take in 2014 that suggested women may provoke domestic abuse—a comment he made while discussing domestic violence allegations against the NFL’s Ray Rice. He apologized, but was suspended for a week by ESPN.
The sports commentator, who broke into the industry as a newspaper reporter but worked his way up to become one of the world’s highest-paid sports pundits, has never run for office.
Neither had Trump prior to 2016, however, and Smith has made clear that—like the president—he has no plans on playing second fiddle if he delves into politics.
“Thanks peeps, but no thanks,” he said to a post that suggested he be Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s running mate in 2028. “If I were to ever THINK of doing this, it would be so to be the TOP DOG! Sorry!”
