It’s less than two months into the second Trump term, and Democrats are already looking toward the next presidential election.
And the candidate that’s got the most buzz right now is not a career politician or a sitting senator. It’s Stephen A. Smith, an ESPN host with a podcast and a large audience of young men.
And lately, he’s gotten into the political realm a whole lot more.
“But the first order of business in the world of politics, because I don’t know if y’all saw what the hell happened on TV today. Live national television. Live international television as well. Y’all got to see this if y’all haven’t said it. Because that’s exactly where I’m getting started,” Smith said on his show.
“It’s in the nation’s capital with a nation. So our President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance have a testy exchange with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. It all happened in front of reporters during their meeting at the White House this afternoon, with the cameras rolling. Keep that in mind.”
And Arizona Republic Columnist E.J. Montini says Smith could win. He joined The Show to talk more about it.
Full conversation
LAUREN GILGER: First, just tell us a little bit about Stephen A. Smith. For those of us who are not familiar, maybe not in the sports world — who is he?
E.J. MONTINI: Well, Stephen Smith is a former he was originally a sportswriter and columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer. He went on to ESPN. And because he’s out there, he’s loud, he’s in your face, he’s blustery, all that kind of stuff — he’s probably one of their most popular host figures, does everything.
And he has sort of crossed over now. I mean, he also is now doing some small things with politics. And so he’s one of those people that is, he would tell you that he is progressive socially and conservative fiscally, that kind of guy. But at the same time, he can be funny. He can be in your face. He can be articulate. He’s a very good media presence.
And that I think is why, in a very surprising thing in one of the early Democratic polls, he came up with 2% of the vote at a time when no one even considered him to be something of a candidate.
GILGER: Right. Very much the bottom. Still 2%, right? But getting a lot of buzz, lots of people writing about him and this possibility, this idea of somebody like him. He himself, though, said it’s an embarrassment that people are looking at him as a candidate.
MONTINI: Exactly. Yeah. What’s important is not necessarily he himself, but someone like him or someone who shares those qualities. Because one of the things that Stephen Smith is doing right now is something that a very smart Democratic contender would be trying to do. I mean, Stephen A. Smith’s audience basically is ESPN, which is a huge young male demographic, of course.
Into podcasts, he has a very popular podcast. Again, you’re getting a lot of young people in it. And he now makes regular appearances on Fox. You know the old saying about “keep your friends close and your enemies closer”? Well, he appears on Fox now, and he does very well. And they like him because he’s in their face and he comes back.
So he’s been on Hannity, he’s been on O’Reilly. He does a lot of different shows. In the ideal sense, that is exactly what a serious Democratic contender for president should be doing.
GILGER: That makes a lot of sense, in the media way. But what I wonder is, maybe Democrats need somebody with sizzle, as you write about, he said we need a candidate with sizzle, somebody who’s combative, somebody with a big media personality. But do Democrats need a politician? Like, what about experience?
MONTINI: No. I mean, look at it from Trump’s point of view. The fact of the matter is, I think, these days charisma is more important than political experience. And I’m not sure it hasn’t always been that way to a degree. I mean, I think we’ve had some presidential candidates, presidential winners who were very good at their jobs and also were sort of charismatic.
But you go down the line of the people who had the most charisma. You know, John F. Kennedy was very young for being a president. Reagan, while he had been governor of California, his experience was limited as well. Obama was certainly limited. But what those guys shared was that they just had that something-something that gets people interested in them.
And that’s, I think, what someone like Stephen A. Smith is arguing for, have somebody out there who speaks to the people that you’re trying to reach, the people that you’re having the hardest time reaching.
GILGER: Is this, Ed, the change in politics that we’ll never go back, maybe because of the Trump effect? Somebody like Donald Trump comes in and blows up the political status quo, and now we have to start thinking differently on all sides?
MONTINI: Well, in the short term, I think that’s true for sure. I don’t know if that will last forever, but it’s certainly true in the short term. I mean, even if you look at the way he conducts his general business now — for instance, his stuff with Zelensky recently. It’s so much about the appearance of toughness rather than actual toughness.
It’s a performance rather than an actual something that’s actually real. And there’s an element to that you would hope that is what a president does to get elected, not when he’s in office. And unfortunately, that’s not happening. And maybe the person who does defeat someone like Trump recognizes that you have to have a little bit of that sizzle, a considerable amount of charisma actually, to get in. But once you’re in, you’re going to be serious about the job.
It’s going to be tough. You know, Democrats want to be policy wonks. I saw (U..S. Rep.) Hakeem Jeffries on TV, the Democratic leader, boasting about how “We’re winning in court.” And I’m thinking to myself, “That’s all well and good, but you’re not winning in the court of public opinion.” And that’s really important.
GILGER: Let me ask you lastly about men here. This is so much about getting the male vote. The last election ended up being very much about getting young men and disenfranchised men and white men to vote in ways that they don’t always do. Women vote more regularly than men in most elections.
Is that a miss by Democrats to focus on that if it’s already a demographic that’s kind of gone toward Trump?
MONTINI: No. You just have to understand how to reach them. It seemed like some things that Trump did, he would go to sort of like MMA fights. And the fact of the matter is, he not only appreciates that kind of thing, but at the same time he’s trying to reach the people that he needs to reach.
Democrats sort of tried to figure that out a little bit toward the end, and it has to be somewhat sincere. You have to find somebody who, in approaching that kind of stuff, is real about the way they’re looking for it, because they’re not going to come to you. You have to go to them.
And that’s a tough call for Democrats right now. I don’t see anyone on the immediate close horizon who’s doing that. And I think that’s what Stephen A. Smith is talking about. He’s asking like, “Where is that person?” And it’s a really good question.
And it should be something, no matter where it comes from, even from this guy on who’s an ESPN sports guy. And people are thinking, “Why? Why are we paying attention to him?” It’s because it’s because he’s asking really good questions about Democrats, and they should be paying attention to him.
