‘What the hell is going on with the Democratic Party?’ (with Stephen A. Smith)

**Dasha Burns** (0:00)
Presented by AHIP.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:02)
Health plans work every day to shield Americans from high and rising costs by negotiating lower prices from providers and drug makers and protecting consumers against unexpected medical bills. Learn more at ahip.org.

**Stephen A. Smith** (0:15)
What the hell is going on with the Democratic Party? There are two of them, almost, and they're divided, and a house divided will never beat the GOP. They're going to have to come together somehow, someway.

**Dasha Burns** (0:26)
Hello, hello, and welcome to The Conversation. I'm Dasha Burns, and every week on this show, I talk to some of the most compelling and sometimes unexpected power players in Washington and beyond. And this week, we've got Stephen A. Smith. Now, you probably know Smith from his massive presence in sports media as an analyst for ESPN.

**Stephen A. Smith** (0:45)
When you look at their personnel, the Dallas Cowboys should win the NFC East. They should be the favorites, and you can make a legitimate argument that they're one of the top three teams in the entire NFC.

**Dasha Burns** (0:58)
But recently, he's expanded beyond sports and into the world of politics.

**Stephen A. Smith** (1:03)
At some point in time, when we go up to the polls and we press whatever buttons on the screen that we press, and we favor one candidate over another, that's the decision that they're putting us in in terms of this binary system that we're living in.

**Dasha Burns** (1:18)
I wanted to understand just how and why he decided to get political. So we talk about the intersection of sports and politics, where he sees both the Democratic and Republican Party's heading and of course, his own political ambitions. That's right, we are talking 2028 Folks, this was a lively one. You are not going to want to miss this conversation or any others, so please make sure you're subscribed to the show. And now here's my conversation with Stephen A. Smith.
Stephen A. Smith, thank you so much for joining The Conversation.

**Stephen A. Smith** (1:51)
Good to be here. How are you?

**Dasha Burns** (1:53)
I am good. You know, I did not think that I would be interviewing Stephen A. Smith for a political podcast, but here we are. You spent most of your career talking sports. That's why a lot of my friends, including my husband, both love you and hate you.
But now you're interviewing politicians, you're weighing in on the direction of the country and both parties. Why did politics become important enough that you wanted to jump in to The Conversation?

**Stephen A. Smith** (2:19)
Well, number one, I've always been somebody who's been an observer. Certainly not an aficionado by any stretch. I've never pretended to be one.
But outside of watching sports throughout my years growing up, I always used to watch Meet the Press. I always used to watch ABC News Nightline with Ted Koppel. I used to watch World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, and I paid attention to the news and what was going on.

**Dasha Burns** (2:42)
Old school names.

**Stephen A. Smith** (2:44)
Yeah. Then as the world evolved and I grew a bit older, all of a sudden I was watching Bill O'Reilly in this no spin zone on Fox News. Eventually watching Sean Hannity, watching The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. The list just went on and on.
It's one thing to read about it, but it was another thing to visualize individuals hosting these shows, listening to them host these shows, getting their perspectives and seeing what they had to say about different issues. I found that every bit as entertaining as watching pundits talk about sports. Certainly nothing beats live events like watching the actual games. That's always going to be at the top of the list. But in terms of pundits and commentary, I enjoyed that just as much as I enjoyed it in the world of sports, because it was real life issues. I don't view it a lot of times as politics. I view it as about social commentary and real world life issues.
That's just how I've always been.

**Dasha Burns** (3:41)
For me, watching election returns come in, that's my version of watching live sports. I do wonder though, as you've gotten into the world of politics, more officially, do you see a commonality between sports and politics? Have the two become more alike? Is that a good thing or a bad thing in your view?

**Stephen A. Smith** (4:01)
I think it's become more alike in terms of the commentary and the pundits. No doubt about it. I think that people in the world of politics have grown to mimic what they've witnessed in the world of sports. Because we've been debating sports issues for many, many years. You didn't always see those platforms in the world of politics. The closest thing that I recall coming to that was Crossfire, when we would watch that on CNN in the past. But outside of that, you really didn't see much of that at the particular moment in time before that stuff really, really proliferated and became a part of the minds of the American public and the American fabric. So I would tell you that since that period of time, I think a lot of people have mimicked sports debates to some degree and the way we go after each other over sports issues that occur on the court or the field of play, I think you see people in the world of politics doing the same right now, even if it's just the pundit as opposed to actual politicians and that makes it just as compelling, if not more so, because again, they're talking about real life issues, you're talking about affordability, you're talking about taxes, you're talking about an economy, immigration, healthcare, etc. Along with various social issues involving safety industries throughout America and all of these things became incredibly pertinent. So as a result of that, you just look at that stuff and you watch it and you listen and you learn because you realize that unlike sports, unless it involves your particular team, these issues that they are discussing are real life issues that for the most part affect you and every American citizen every single day of our lives.