Stephen A. Smith has responded to Michelle Obama’s harsh criticism of ESPN this week, slamming the former First Lady for making “offensive” remarks about voting for Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential elections.
Smith’s statement comes as Obama chastised ESPN and its on-screen personalities, including First Take star Smith, on the most recent episode of her ‘IMO’ podcast. The former First Lady compared the network to reality TV show ‘The Real Housewives of Atlanta’.
“It’s the same drama, and they’re yelling at each other, and they don’t get along, you know? I mean, Stephen A. Smith, he’s just like every other talk show host,” she stated, as per Daily Mail.
Stephen A. Smith says he is ‘still a bit salty’ at Michelle Obama
Later, Smith hit back at Obama on the new episode of his YouTube show.
After encouraging Obama to invite guests with “dissenting” viewpoints to the IMO podcast, he chastised Obama’s remarks about Trump and the Republican party before the presidential election.
“Michelle Obama, I wanna take this opportunity to remind you that while you are revered by me personally, and I truly, truly mean that with the greatest sincerity, I’m still a bit salty at you,” Smith stated.
He reminded her that she stated that voting for Trump means vote against her and fellow women during her campaign. “I want to say for the record – I took major offense to that.”
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Targetting Obama, he said that it was the only thing that he did not like or appreciate, adding that there are so many factors that influence where your vote will go.
“For some people, it’s all about the economy. For others, it’s all about national security. For some people, it is immigration. For some people, it’s safety in the streets of America. Long before they think about pro-choice or pro-life,” he continued.
After hearing the analogy to the Real Housewives, Smith went on to call Obama “sensational”.
“So this doesn’t have anything to do with what you were talking about, how sports and reality TV mirror one another, even though we would beg to differ,” the ESPN anchor said.
‘You are so wrong’: Smith to Michelle Obama
He mentioned reality TV frequently uses fictitious settings and scenarios in order to elicit reactions and other things.
“We’re at sports, that’s live entertainment, and you’re actually competing against one another is big time. No, reality TV is not like that. You’re so wrong about that, about that assertion, but that’s neither here nor there.”
In his concluding remarks, he gave a message to Obama, saying that “you will never hear me utter a negative word about you.” He, however, added that he still remains “pretty salty about what you said about us.”
