ESPN host Stephen A Smith has named several factors he thinks contributed to Kamala Harris’s devastating loss to President-elect Donald Trump.
Speaking on Wednesday’s (November 6) episode of his The Stephen A Smith Show podcast, Smith said Harris’s overwhelming amount of celebrity endorsements – from the likes of Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey – was a major reason she lost the election.
“In fairness, I don’t think anybody should be laying the Party’s loss at [Harris’s] feet,” the sports commentator prefaced. “In the end, celebrities, who are worth hundreds of millions, if not billions, who most American citizens feel are incredibly detached from their way of life and their quality of life, were not going to get away and guilt them into doing something different than what their experience says is going on and what they should do about it.”
Going on to cite the former First Lady’s Kalamazoo rally speech, in which she told the audience that a Black man’s “vote for [Trump] is a vote against us,” Smith fired back: “If we don’t agree with you, we’re against you?
“How do you think the men felt about that? So we have to do what you tell us to do; otherwise, we’re anti-you? You thought that worked? Do y’all know anything about most men? You think that’s going to work?”
Smith also referenced one of Winfrey’s previous comments, in which she told rallygoers that a Trump victory would mean they’d never vote again.
“Who believed that,” he questioned. “This is the kind of stuff that alienates an electorate, alienates a voter.”
In a Thursday (November 7) episode, Smith admitted: “I expected a tough, tight race. What we witnessed was an annihilation. This was supposed to last, this debate about the election and how many votes, it was supposed to last probably until Thursday, Friday, maybe even into the weekend. Ladies and gentlemen, Fox News called it at 2am.
“It was that of an annihilation,” he said, labeling Trump’s return to the White House “the greatest comeback probably in American history.”
Smith joins the firing squad of political talking heads who are searching for people to blame for Trump’s election victory.
Many have pointed fingers at Harris, who they argued failed to distance herself from the Biden administration, while some progressives have argued that she simply didn’t appeal enough to the working class. Others have even blamed Joe Biden himself, who they say took far too long to drop out of the race.
