Stephen A. Smith got exactly what he wanted from Trump callout with CNN, News Nation hits
The New York Knicks finally broke through this weekend with their first NBA championship in more than half a century, a euphoric moment in sports history. But the most vocal Knicks fan in all of sports media was celebrating a victory that went beyond the orange and blue.
Stephen A. Smith, a native New Yorker who called the Knicks’ title run the “best feeling” of his professional career, quickly turned his attention to showing off his own apparent W over the president of the United States.
Smith used the opportunity of Donald Trump’s presence at Game 3 of the NBA Finals to start a spitting contest with the president over their respective New Yorker bona fides and reiterate an invitation for a debate. After Trump challenged Smith’s IQ, Smith used the First Take airwaves, while standing in front of an American flag animation as “Hail To the Chief” played, to taunt Trump for falling asleep at Game 3 and blame him for the Knicks losing the game.
It was classic Smith: using the pulpit of a big sports moment to turn attention toward himself. But at first, it seemed Smith’s gambit fell flat. The star commentator drew paltry YouTube numbers on his big response — fewer than a recent commentary on the Netflix Kevin Hart Roast — despite teasing viewers toward his channel while live on ESPN.
But after New York closed out its 4-1 series win over the Spurs on Saturday night in West Texas, Smith’s long game came into view. The ESPN star, aided by a news media that is more than happy to deploy him as a much more provocative opponent to the president than any of its hosts are able to be these days, got exactly what he wanted from his stunt.
It was never about Trump, or New York. Postgame, Smith was live on News Nation’s Cuomo, telling the host, “I ended up being right. He was there, they lost. He’s gone, they won,” while soberly standing up for the fans in a city that, it should be pointed out, Smith, like the president, proudly abandoned in recent years in favor of the sunshine and tax friendliness of Florida.
By Sunday morning, Smith had vaulted to an even larger platform. On CNN’s State of the Union, between his usual performatively centrist hits to the left, finding one small lane through which he could claim Trump is an upgrade over Joe Biden, Smith doubled down on challenging the sitting president to a televised debate.
Smith has no other mode. The only difference between his callout to the president on a Sunday show and the type of thing he might bellow at Ryan Clark next October is the more serious tone Smith brought to CNN. The benefit Smith sees in such a debate — for New York, or for the country he sometimes suggests he wants to lead — has never been made clear, but after decades of embracing debate, he may have forgotten all other forms of discussion.
NEW: Stephen A. Smith CHALLENGES President Trump to a TV debate: “I’m not here to denigrate the President of the United States. He is certainly an upgrade from what we were seeing from Joe Biden in terms of his alertness and what have you.”
“But I would say however he turned… pic.twitter.com/NTsyLdIqp8
— TV News Now (@TVNewsNow) June 14, 2026
We are past the point of surprise that a television star can cut through to the president more effectively than other critics or gatekeepers. And Smith, who also has a personal relationship with Trump dating back to their days as young men in the Big Apple, has been moving this direction for as long, locking horns with politicians and offering opinions on the biggest issues of the day. As with his sports talk career, attention is his only guiding principle. Even when he teases a run for political office, the driving force is his desire to conquer the other candidates rhetorically. Likewise, when he says he won’t run, it is because he would have to give up his paychecks from Disney and SiriusXM.
The president welcomed criticism by accepting James Dolan’s invitation and returning to New York, though it had long ago disowned him. He was practically begging for it to become a controversy, perhaps to distract from other, more dire issues or simply as an F-U to his political opponents.
And while criticisms from the media rarely stick to Trump these days, Smith actually had a chance to try. Perhaps there was nothing Smith actually could have said, despite having the president’s ear, that would have made the First Take stunt worth it. Still, one would have hoped that if Smith was going to masquerade as a man of the people, he at least would have tried to land a good punch or two on behalf of the populace he seems to have convinced himself he could govern more effectively than anyone else.
Instead, the one political take that aggregators on social media will blast out from Smith’s enviable run on the weekend news shows is Smith comparing Trump favorably to Joe Biden, even as his second administration trends less popular than his first and even Biden’s. Smith won the debate but had nothing to say. The main message, as ever, is to stay tuned for more content to come.
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