After publicizing his desire to debate former President Donald Trump on The Howard Stern Show this week, Stephen A Smith explained why he so desperately wants to take on the likely GOP nominee.
Doubling down on the challenge to Trump on The Stephen A. Smith Show, Smith explained that he does not believe Trump to be ignorant on political policy. Instead, Trump simply knows he doesn’t have to bother with getting in the weeds because he is such a shifty public speaker. So Smith wants to debate the world’s most famous politician in order to meet him where he’s at and stand him up rhetorically.
“I’m no political aficionado. So I don’t want to come across as somebody who’s acting like I know all the issues,” Smith said. “But when I said I would love to debate Trump, I wasn’t lying. Because what you all don’t realize is I don’t think I have to be that knowledgeable to debate Trump.”
It’s all part of Smith’s ongoing frustration with both the Republican and Democratic parties over Trump’s political dominance. He believes someone like himself (maybe not a huge surprise) is perfectly suited to take Trump down because of his oratorial abilities.
“I’m not questioning his intelligence, but do I believe that you can stand before me in front of him, and I can challenge him to influence folks based on my presentation and delivery on the issues that we both know?” Smith explained. “Yeah, I don’t think it’s that hard. I mean, listen to him.”
Smith continued:
“It ain’t that hard to debate him from a substantive standpoint. The issue in question is, can you match his wit? Which nobody seems to be able to do on either side.”
Trump appears headed for a 2020 rematch against President Joe Biden, who had no real challengers for the Democratic ticket.
Smith is not optimistic the 81-year-old Biden can go tit for tat with his opponent.
“You don’t have anybody that can really debate him and get all over him,” Smith said. “Because he can distract by bringing up different things and not articulating his position in an in-depth manner on a plethora of other issues. And folks are buying it. And you know what else he does that’s, by the way, brilliant? Because of his ability to use one-liners, jokes, insults, mockery, etc., this is what he does. He forces folks to react to that, and you barely hear anything from him on the issues.”
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.