Stephen A. Smith has been on quite the run defending guests with questionable intentions on his podcast in recent months. But his latest episode with known antisemitic influencer Candace Owens might’ve just taken the cake for most egregious.
Smith hosted Owens for nearly an hour on the latest episode of The Stephen A. Smith Show, where the well-documented antisemite talked with the ESPN star at length about the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran.
Owens’ appearance continues a trend for Smith of hosting right-wing political commentators on his show. In the past two months, Smith has spoken with other conservative media personalities, including Bill O’Reilly, Megyn Kelly, Steve Bannon, and Riley Gaines.
It’s not the first time Owens has appeared on Smith’s podcast. But given the timing and the subject matter, along with Owens’ recent comments about the conflict, Smith’s effusive praise of his guest took on a different tone.
Recently, Owens posted what Colby Hall of Mediaite described as a “not-so-veiled anti-Semitic trope that the Jewish state is controlling U.S. foreign policy.” See below:
Our foreign policy is dictated by Israel.
Trump will continue to do as he is told by Netanyahu.
If you want to know what America will do, spare yourself the fake White House press briefings and start listening to Bibi.We are a colony of Israel.
Your politicians are bought…— Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) June 13, 2025
In 2019, Hall reported comments that Owens made at a Turning Point USA event in which the right-wing provocateur defended Adolf Hitler, saying, “If Hitler just wanted to make Germany great and have things run well, okay, fine. The problem is that he wanted, he had dreams outside of Germany. He wanted to globalize. He wanted everybody to be German, everybody to be speaking German. Everybody to look a different way.”
Suffice it to say, there are numerous instances when Owens has shown her true colors. This includes her questioning the veracity of Nazi experiments as “bizarre propaganda” and saying about the Holocaust that “an ethnic cleansing almost took place” while arguing it was actually the Allies who ethnically cleansed 12 million Germans.
But that didn’t stop Smith from having her on his podcast, and later defending Owens by saying, “She seems to know what the hell she’s talking about.”
“I know that some of you out there may not have wanted to hear a damn thing that Candace Owens had to say, but four plus million people subscribe to listen to her every chance they get. And not everybody in America, or this world for that matter, can say that,” Smith said following his interview with Owens. “What she says matters, and a lot more often than not, she seems to know what the hell she’s talking about. It’s very rare you hear somebody who says, ‘She’s clueless. She don’t know what she’s saying.’ You don’t hear that about her. You wanna refute what she has to say and defy her positions? You better know what you’re talking about because she certainly does usually, if not always. That’s why I had her on the show.”
On the surface, there’s no issue with Smith hosting people like Owens on his show. She’s very popular in her own right, and there is undoubtedly a portion of the population that enjoys listening to her. The issue is that Smith, absent any real insight or information about the topics he’s discussing, willingly endorses Owens’ view of the world.
It’s one thing to have someone like Candace Owens on and offer push back and criticism. You know, like journalists do. It’s another thing to have her on and offer her a huge platform to spread hate and misinformation, which is what Stephen A. Smith did.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.