Stephen A. Smith Suggests NFL Snub Helped Spark Donald Trump’s Presidential Run
“It’s not an accident that you’ve heard the NFL be very, very silent throughout this election and following it,” he said on SiriusXM Patriot.
One powerful American institution might be responsible for the rise of Donald Trump — and it’s not who you might expect.
“Donald Trump wanted to own an NFL team. He wanted to own the Buffalo Bills,” ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith explained to Andrew Wilkow on SiriusXM Patriot. “This was within the last five years. The NFL wasn’t receptive to that, in the eyes of Donald Trump, and that played a role in him deciding to run for the presidency. It’s not an accident that you’ve heard the NFL be very, very silent throughout this election and following it.”
Smith, who is also a host on SiriusXM’s Mad Dog Sports Radio, acknowledged that political conversation has increasingly seeped into the sports world.
“We just finished talking about Donald Trump,” Smith said, explaining the need to respond to comments made by professional athletes — specifically New York Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz. “One of the things I highlighted is that, as divisive as the rhetoric may have been, he’s our president-elect right now. Let’s not act like all 60 million people felt a certain way.”
“And you’ve got a member of the New York Giants who had someone invade his home and graffiti ‘KKK’ and swastikas on it,” Smith continued, referring to the vandalism of fullback Nikita Whitlock’s Northern New Jersey home. “You can’t just sit there and say ‘a Trump supporter’ did that simply because that person supported Trump. … Everybody didn’t feel that way. You can’t do that. It’s not right.”
