Stephen A. Smith, who had been notably anti-Donald Trump during this year’s election season, says he’s changed his mind on the president-elect.
The ESPN talking head said over the weekend that he has regrets about voting for Vice President Kamala Harris, and that he would entertain the possibility of supporting Trump in the future.
On Fox News’ Life, Liberty & Levin on Saturday, Smith told host Mark Levin: “I voted Democrat, and I’ve got to tell you something right now: I don’t like the fact that I did.” In a contentious exchange with Fox’s Sean Hannity prior to the election, Smith had previously explained why he wouldn’t be voting for Trump.
Weeks later, Smith seems to view things somewhat differently.
“I don’t want to hear about, ‘Oh we’re about the law. Nobody’s above the law’… but then you go out and you pardon your son, and you try to blame everybody else for it,” Smith said, referencing President Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son, Hunter, for tax and gun crimes.
Smith also criticized what he viewed as “fearmongering” by Democrats.
“Why don’t you come up with a plan that tells us why we should vote for you?” he argued. ”We’re not about America only, but being about America and prioritizing what’s going on in this nation with the desolate and the disenfranchised and everybody else in between, and looking out for the best interests of what it is for America. That is not a crime for an American politician or commander-in-chief or senator or congressional figure to have that mentality.”
“If Donald Trump, JD Vance, Byron Donalds, Marco Rubio, or the host of other Republican candidates coming down the pike, that’s the kind of message that they’re going to put forth, I’m down for it,” he continued.
When asked whether he would support Trump now if the election hadn’t already occurred, Smith said he was open to it.
“Quite possibly,” he replied, adding that Trump would still “have to prove a lot.” Smith then cited what initially turned him off of Trump—that his demands of “loyalty” and “fealty” would “take priority [over] governing.”
