Stephen A. Smith is no stranger to courting controversy on pretty much any topic. But Black social media is wondering what the hell he was thinking over his latest comments about former President Donald Trump.
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Smith went on conservative firebrand Sean Hannity’s FOX News show on April 18 and stepped outside his sports commentary lane to discuss politics...trashing Democrats for allegedly politicizing the criminal hush money trial against Trump because they’re unable to beat him in the 2024 presidential elections.
More alarmingly, Smith also defended Trump’s asinine claim that Black people relate to his legal troubles.
“As much as people may have been abhorred by Donald Trump’s statement weeks ago, talking about how he’s hearing that Black folks find him relatable because of what he is going through is similar to what black Americans have gone through, he wasn’t lying,” Smith said. “He was telling the truth.”
Understandably, Smith’s equating the leniency that Trump has received from America’s criminal justice system with the inhumanity and injustice that Black people experienced drew widespread backlash on social media.
“I can tell you that Donald Trump has been treated kindly … by the law,” @iamchanteezy says in a TikTok video. “...This man got away with so much stuff, …he should have been in jail.”
Others responded more bluntly: “What the f**k is wrong with Stephen Smith?”
Even the NAACP hopped on the Smith-trashing train.
“Relatable!?!” the civil rights organization asked, highlighting that Black folks would have been behind bars a long time ago if they had 88 felony changes and four criminal indictments.
In an apparent attempt to win Black votes, Trump delivered the unhinged speech in question to Black conservatives in February.
“I got indicted a second time and a third time and a fourth time, and a lot of people said that that’s why the Black people like me, because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against, and they viewed me as I’m being discriminated against,” he said.
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