Everything Stephen A Smith seemed to desire when he signed on with SiriusXM for a weekly political talk show came together on Wednesday night when, after a lengthy sitdown with former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Smith took a live call from Cuomo’s opponent in the New York City mayoral race, Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani.
In one fell swoop, Smith was at the center of a hotly contested political race in his home city.
As part of his weekly “Straight Shooter” program on the SiriusXM POTUS station, Smith interviewed Cuomo for roughly 40 minutes about the former governor’s candidacy for mayor. Smith, who previously argued Democrats will have “no chance” to win future elections if they go the way of Mamdani, gave Cuomo the space to make a very similar argument. Cuomo, who lost the Democratic primary to Mamdani earlier this year and is now running as an independent, claimed that Mamdani is “not a New Yorker” and is “not qualified” to be the city’s next mayor.
About 45 minutes later, Mamdani called in live to “Straight Shooter” to rebut Cuomo’s claims.
“What we heard from Andrew Cuomo was not leadership,” Mamdani said. “It was him spending 20 minutes talking about me because he has no vision left to actually offer New Yorkers.”
Mamdani also pledged to join Smith in person for an interview.
Since the presidential election last year, Smith has positioned himself — both as a political commentator and as a potential candidate — as an anti-establishment centrist. Like many others, Smith often argues that the Democratic Party has lost its way, leaving people like him behind. The distinction that makes Smith different from some political operators is that he advocates against the fringe and for the party moving back to the center.
As a result, a race between Cuomo and Mamdani offers Smith an obvious opportunity to make his point. Mamdani, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist, shocked the establishment by beating Cuomo in a grassroots campaign powered by a populist message. This is the exact opposite of where Smith believes the Democrats and America ought to be headed.
What Smith, in his instantly viral conversation with Mamdani live on-air and across his analysis of the race, has overlooked is that Mamdani already won a closely contested primary and is polling at 43 percent in the three-person race for mayor.
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.