Stephen A. Smith is letting the world in on details about a secret meeting he had with President Donald Trump following a dinner he attended recently that sparked major backlash. Smith, who is often publicly critical of the president, joined Bill Maher and Kid Rock for a dinner at the White House this month. Smith clarified his attendance in a recent episode of his podcast.
“It was not my meeting,” Smith explained on the show. “The president had reached out to Bill Maher.” According to Smith, Maher told him that Trump pushed him to “bring one of your crazy leftist friends with you,” resulting in Maher inviting Smith, which Trump agreed to and seemed excited about, as Trump reportedly said he had ‘a lot’ he wanted to say to Smith.
“Evidently he forgot he knew me for 35 years, because I immediately said, ‘Yes, I’m coming,’” Smith said. He says Trump wasted no time in hurling insults at Smith upon his arrival at the White House.
“When he finally saw me, he accused me of being nasty and mean to him because obviously, contrary to what some of you may want to recognize, I have been critical of this president. There’s a lot of things I don’t like,” he said on his podcast.
Smith told the hosts of The View he had his own agenda in attending the dinner. “I went to the White House to look him in the face and to address things,” Smith said, explaining that he confronted the president on what he views as policies “basically impeding the willingness of folks in the private sector to be as charitable and as philanthropic as they’ve been in the past” against HBCUs and DEI initiatives.
Smith continued, adding, “To his credit, he said, ‘I actually didn’t think about that. I’m going to think about that a lot more, and I’ll be talking to you about it.’ To his credit, thereafter, he called me after the meeting a couple of days later to ask me to reiterate what my points were about the HBCUs, because he plans on talking to people about that in the next few days.”
Trump publicly claimed the meeting went well. “Even though they have to put on a certain little facade for their people, they like Trump, and I actually like them,” he said, as reported by USA Today. Fellow podcaster and sports journalist Jemele Hill has been critical of Smith’s decision to meet with the president, calling the meeting a “dummy mission.”