ESPN host Stephen A. Smith stormed out of a televised panel debate on Wednesday during a heated discussion about the government shutdown.
During the NewsNation debate, hosted by Chris Cuomo, Smith told three members of Congress participating—Republican Jim Jordan, Democrat Ro Khanna, and Democrat Madeleine Dean—that Washington does not understand how “ticked off” ordinary Americans are about the state of the country.
Smith, an NBA analyst who has hinted at a move into politics, became particularly outraged after an audience member revealed that he has been working as a delivery driver because he is not getting a paycheck for his regular job as an air traffic controller due to the shutdown.
“We’re looking at a president that just gave $20 billion to Argentina. We’re witnessing what I consider to be a retribution tour. And even though, to some degree, I don’t blame him because of how people went after him, still it appears to be counterproductive,” Smith said.
“We’re listening to this kind of stuff while a young man walked up to the microphone and said he had to leave here to go and work on DoorDash to help pay for his daughter’s tuition. Meanwhile, everybody up here gets paid, but he ain’t.”
Smith added that many Americans are “p---ed off” because, despite paying taxes, they see little improvement in their lives or any reduction in the nation’s nearly $37 trillion debt.
“Somehow, some way, you’re supposed to be doing something constructive and productive enough to make sure that we don’t have that kind of deficit,” Smith told the lawmakers. “It isn’t happening.
“A government shutdown is going on right now. A man has to work on DoorDash when he’s really an air traffic controller, that we applauded—and we’re up here talking about how much some money is going to cost, and the only person that don’t have a check coming is him. You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to take a break,” Smith said before exiting the stage.
Smith returned to the debate stage minutes later.
Toward the end of the discussion, Cuomo referred to the walk-off and remarked that if he had to guess which panel member would storm off, he “would never have guessed” it would be Smith.
