Stephen A. Smith, the ESPN host, spent about four hours at the White House with President Donald Trump this week. He says he came away thinking Trump knows Republicans could lose the House.
Smith had dinner with Trump, comedian Bill Maher and musician Kid Rock. He described the evening Friday night on CNN’s “Laura Coates Live.”
“He’s hearing all the noise about how the Dems are going to win back the House, how they’re probably, the Republicans will probably hold on to the Senate,” Smith said.
“I got the impression that he somewhat believes that’s going to be a reality, but he’s working hard to debunk it, or rather, to fend it off,” he added.
Trump didn’t show much doubt about his own standing, though. Smith said the president pointed to polling that he claimed showed “99% of Republicans actually approve” of him.
“‘So the people out there that are conservatives, that are Republicans, they love me, I love them. They will vote the way that I want them to vote,’” Smith recalled Trump saying. “That’s how he feels. That’s the level of confidence that he has.”
Smith said he had expected the dinner to last 20 or 30 minutes. It went on for hours and included a tour of the West Wing, the Rose Garden and the ballroom under construction.
“It was shocking,” Smith said. “I give him all the credit in the world because he didn’t run from any questions.”
On the colonnade, where portraits of past presidents hang, Smith said a picture of an autopen hung where Joe Biden’s should be.
“I said, come on, man, that’s cruel. He said, actually, it’s very funny,” Smith said. He described Trump as “immovable” on the subject.
Trump also told his guests he had to “fix everything,” Smith said, “because I am the greatest president in the history of the United States of America. You do know that, right?”
Coates asked if he said it with a straight face.
“He just kept going,” Smith said. “No matter what, no matter what we threw at him, that’s what he was saying.”