Stephen A. Smith Hits ‘Petty’ Trump for Pushing Washington Redskins Name Change: He’s Trying to ‘Distract’ from Epstein

Stephen A. Smith on Monday accused President Donald Trump of drumming up controversy on the Washington Commanders’ name to turn the public’s attention away from Jeffrey Epstein.

The day before, Trump claimed on Truth Social that he’d consider restricting the Commanders’ proposed relocation to Washington, D.C. if the team didn’t change its name back to the Washington Redskins. Trump previously stated that he’d help the team with the move as the proposed site is owned by the federal government.

The president’s post came after a chaotic week in which he was the subject of a bombshell piece from The Wall Street Journal. Included in that report was an alleged letter Trump sent to Epstein for his birth. Trump has denied writing the letter and threatened to sue The Wall Street Journal for over it.

On Monday’s episode of First Take, Smith explained why he felt Trump’s newest fascination with the Redskins was nothing more than an attempt to take the heat off the Epstein scandal:

Well, I think it’s the president being petty. I think it’s him being evasive because the reality is that no matter how good he wants people to believe things are with the “Big Beautiful Bill” and other things that have been transpiring — tariff wars, the border issues, or whatever — if you’re on the right, obviously you’re happy with a lot of things that are going on; and there’s nothing to take credit away from that. I’ll leave the political evaluations to other people.

But nevertheless, there are millions upon millions of people in the United States of America that are not necessarily happy with some of the things that he’s doing. So what does he do? He caters to his base, because when you look at the Redskin’s name, obviously it’s something that needed to be changed; and by him bringing that issue up, we all know from a political landscape it’s much ado about nothing. It’s just him catering to his base to make sure that he serves to appease them in some way, to distract them from other issues — including the Epstein files, by the way, because a lot of people associated with the MAGA right want those files released. And you even have Republican representatives on the Hill wanting those files released, wanting to see for themselves because they’re not buying what the administration is saying when they say that there’s absolutely nothing there.

Watch above via ESPN