Dan Abrams Rips Stephen A. Smith’s ‘Pompous’ and ‘Arrogant’ Assertion He Has ‘No Choice’ But To Run For President
Mediaite founder Dan Abrams tore into ESPN host Stephen A. Smith’s “pompous,” “self-important,” and “arrogant” assertion that he has no choice but to run for president in 2028 because people keep asking him to, Monday.
“Stephen A. Smith has declared that he may run for president,” reacted Abrams on his SiriusXM POTUS Channel show. “Now, that’s not that big a deal in and of itself, but there was something about the way he characterized it that I do think makes it a bigger deal.”
Abrams then played a clip of Smith on ABC’s This Week with Jonathan Karl, saying:
I have no choice [but to run for president] because I’ve had elected officials, and I’m not gonna give their names, elected officials coming up to me. I’ve had folks who are pundits come up to me. I’ve had folks that got a lot of money, billionaires and others, have talked to me about exploratory committees and things of that nature. I’m not a politician, I’ve never had a desire to be a politician, I just signed a contract extension with ESPN. I am very, very happy with my day job, I am very happy with my bosses… It’s a pretty damn good contract. I couldn’t be any happier. But here’s the reality, people literally, people have walked up to me, including my own pastor for crying out loud.
Abrams responded, “He’s saying he has no choice, no choice because elected officials are coming up to him, which I believe; his pastor’s saying it to him, I believe that too; billionaires, I believe that. I believe all of that, but there is something so pompous and self-important, arrogant about saying, ‘Well you know, I may not have a choice.’ I mean, I’ll bet you Mark Cuban and George Clooney and all sorts of other people have people telling them all the time, ‘Well you know, you really ought to run. Really ought to run.'”
He continued, “Look, by the way, I like Stephen A. Smith. I might even vote for Stephen A. Smith. He’s a political moderate, I like political moderates. What I don’t like is people who become so infected with their celebrity or importance that they suggest that, ‘Oh, you know, I just may not have a choice. I just may have to, you know, duty calls.’ There’s no such thing.”
Abrams concluded, “He may be ambitious enough to run for president, he might make a very strong candidate for president, but the notion that he has no choice because people are just clamoring for him is nonsense.”
Watch above via SiriusXM’s The Dan Abrams Show.
