Stephen A. Smith blames FCC for preventing him from presidential run

There’s one thing keeping Stephen A. Smith from being president of the United States. Well, one thing keeping him from running.

Thursday afternoon, a listener called Smith’s Mad Dog Sports Radio show on SiriusXM to ask if he would consider bringing back the fireside chats if elected president. We don’t know the answer to that, because Smith didn’t know what the fireside chats were. For those like Smith, the fireside chats were a series of informal radio addresses given by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during his time in the White House.

Credit Smith for his honesty. But the biggest thing keeping Smith from hosting fireside chats isn’t the fact that he doesn’t know what they are; it’s the fact that he has to become president first. And according to Smith, he won’t be running unless the FCC scraps the equal-time rule.

A caller asked Stephen A. Smith if he would consider bringing back the fireside chats as POTUS

“What fireside chats? I don’t know what he means by that, you talking about Hannity and Colmes?” pic.twitter.com/qmeLV43yP6

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) March 19, 2026

“I ain’t scared. I’d love to be on that debate stage,” Smith insisted. “But they require that because I’m in this profession, and because of equal airtime, that I give up my job and my check the moment that I announce that I’m running. Now I’d consider giving this up if I were the President of the United States, I’m not giving this up for a maybe…you want me to run? Fix it. Fix it.

“My goal is to be on the debate stage one night, and to be right on First Take and SiriusXM the next day. That’s my goal, unless I won the election. But prior to that, my goal is to go right back to work after I finish debating those folks on Capitol Hill. I ain’t allowed to do that, so it can’t happen. It ain’t my fault I’m not running.”

The equal-time rule requires American radio and TV stations to provide equivalent airtime opportunities to qualified competing political candidates. Which means if Smith were running for president, SiriusXM and ABC would need to offer competing candidates as much airtime as he receives. Except cable and streaming options are considered exempt from the rule.

The mandate has garnered attention recently, after Stephen Colbert went on-air and said CBS prevented him from interviewing James Talarico, a Texas state representative, because of the FCC rule. Previously, late-night shows were exempt from the rule as determined by the “bona fide news interviews” amendment. But Trump administration appointed FCC chair Brendan Carr has more recently sought to reinforce the rule, imposing the equal-time mandate on late-night shows.

And if there’s anyone out there who really wants Stephen A. Smith to run for president, they’ll need to ensure the ESPN star will be exempt from the equal-time rule first.