ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith corrected Joy Behar on her own show as she desperately tried to downplay the electoral victory of President Donald Trump while denying the political realities facing the Democrats.
Smith joined ABC’s “The View” Tuesday as Behar tried to spin the narrative that Trump’s comeback was not actually all that impressive.
“He’s been going around with his cronies, touting his so-called landslide and blowout win, but he won the popular vote by 1.5 percent, one of the smallest ever, and he won the general election by less than 50 percent,” Behar said. “So what kind of mandate is this really?”
But Smith, who made it clear that he is no fan of the commander-in-chief, warned Behar that dismissing Trump’s political ascendance is a fool’s errand for his fellow Democrats.
Smith insisted that “It IS a mandate.”
“Let me be very clear, I’m no supporter of Trump, I’m a supporter of truth and the facts,” Smith said. “Here’s the facts: The man won every swing state, he increased the voter turnout in his favor from the standpoint of blacks, Latinos, and young voters.”
Beyond improving his share of those key demographics from 2020, Smith added that “89 percent of the counties shifted to the right.”
.@stephenasmith on why he considers Pres. Trump’s 2024 win a “mandate”: “It wasn’t about [Trump]. They were voting against what the Democrats were throwing in their direction.” pic.twitter.com/ODnckgDO40
— The View (@TheView) March 4, 2025
“That’s a mandate. We can sit up here and play around if we want to,” he emphasized.
“In 2020 Trump didn’t win the popular vote,” Smith continued. “The Republicans hadn’t won the popular vote, if I remember correctly, since 2004. But they did this year, so 20 years after they last won the popular vote, they won the popular vote, they won the electoral college vote, the man won every swing state, and on top of that, 89 percent of the counties shifted right.”
Smith broke with many of his fellow Democrats as he acknowledged these truths.
“I don’t understand how people can look at that and say, ‘There’s no mandate.’ There’s a mandate!” he added.
Smith also rebuked the Democrats who say, “What we did really wasn’t that bad; we should continue to do that,” while doubling down on their tactics in the face of the electoral loss.
“No! Don’t continue to do that. Find a new strategy,” he warned.
Smith even said that the election was not merely about Trump, but to a large degree dealt with American revulsion toward the Democrats.
“In the end, what it comes down to is this: The American people, in their eyes, it wasn’t about him. They were voting against what the Democrats were throwing in their direction,” the sports commentator remarked.
“I want somebody to step up and recognize that man in the Oval Office, whether you like it or not, is potent,” Smith said. “He’s coming, and he wins. You’ve got to find a way to beat him. This way is not the way.”
Behar and Smith seem to represent two types of Democrats today.
The first kind simply cannot admit, even after the loss to their greatest enemy, that a platform of preferred pronouns, political correctness, and tampons in men’s bathrooms just does not resonate with everyday people.
If anything, these types of Democrats will just say that the voters are themselves bad people for not supporting their radicalism.
But the second kind see the dangers of the far-left and woke direction of the party, and they are willing to grapple with basic political realities rather than denying their existence.
The Democrats have two years before the midterms and four before the next general election to figure out whether their party will be an actual political coalition or an increasingly absurd parody of itself.
But they had better hurry, because their opposition is indeed potent.
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