Sports commentator Stephen A. Smith unloaded on President Donald Trump on Monday over his "disgusting" suggestion that LeBron James might be a racist, breaking with the president despite his own long-running feud with the NBA star.
Smith's rebuke, delivered on his YouTube show, came days after Trump was pressed by Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy at a White House press conference on July 24 to settle the Michael Jordan vs. LeBron greatest-of-all-time debate. Doocy raised the question hours after James announced he was signing a two-year, $8 million deal with the Philadelphia 76ers for his 24th NBA season.
“Michael Jordan is a guy that’s a friend of mine. I play golf with him,” Trump began. “He’s a really good guy. I think LeBron is—maybe he’s a racist, but maybe he doesn’t like Trump. I don’t know. I only like people that like me, so I would say Michael Jordan all the way.”
Smith, the ESPN First Take host who has teased a 2028 Democratic presidential run, did not hold back.
"Our president is trifling," Smith said. "When you're calling LeBron James a racist, you know what? You know, it's really getting ridiculous."
"The divisiveness, the way that this man acts, the things that he says, it's really, really disgusting," he continued. "And it needs to be said. I held it in long enough."
Smith and James have publicly clashed for years, most notably after Smith criticized James's son Bronny, and Smith admitted in February, "We don't like each other. The world needs to know that."
Smith addressed the awkwardness on-air, noting he wasn't defending James out of any personal loyalty.
"We gotta call stuff out," Smith said. "Even if it's from our president, even if it's from our commander-in-chief. And this is the latest salvo that he's thrown in somebody's direction, ultimately to distract from the job that he's doing."
Atlantic staff writer and former ESPN host Jemele Hill quote-tweeted a clip of Trump's Oval Office comments with a three-word dismissal: "What a weirdo."
Political commentator and former Clinton White House aide Keith Boykin was blunter still, telling Yahoo News that "the guy with a 50-year track record of racism has no business calling anyone a racist" — a nod to the litany of housing-discrimination suits, the Central Park Five ad, and the birther crusade against Barack Obama that Boykin has repeatedly catalogued.
Trump himself publicly encouraged Smith to run for president last May, telling a NewsNation town hall, "I'd love to see him run." James, for his part, endorsed Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the last three presidential elections.