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It's Monday, December 22nd, and you are listening to an encore episode of Behind the Table.

Today, take a listen to our recent episode with Stephen A. Smith. He talks about commenting on politics after years as a sports

analyst. Why would he want to do that? His political identity and his view on the highs and lows of

the second Trump presidency. It's a great listen. Please enjoy.

All right. This is very exciting because not only do we have the return of Alyssa Farah Griffin from a bad stomach bug, we are joined by the Godfather of

Podcasting. The man, Stephen A. Smith is here. Hello, Stephen. How you? Crowd goes wild.

We just had a great show. Thank you for being here for it.

You know, we work on a show that dips into politics a lot, as you know, and we often have guests to come on. We kind of switch. We'll do a political segment, then we'll have a celebrity on, and so many of them want to talk about politics, and so many of them will do anything possible to avoid talking about it. you have made a decision to dive into this in a way that you didn't have to do. I mean, you were, if you just stayed to sports,

you were doing quite well. What made you decide this is something I need to talk about? I'm a voter.

I'm an American citizen. I'm a conscientious observer. And I don't like a lot of the things that I

that I was seeing. But more importantly than anything else, you see so much fervor, so much

passion when it comes to the world of sports. Well, just imagine how that's going to be when

it comes to people's livelihoods, the economy, immigration, the borders, obviously, safety in

the streets, education, etc. And so when you look at it

from that standpoint and you see the kind of pertinent issues that are going on and affect the lives

of the average everyday American citizen, I was just one of those people that deduced a long time

ago. What justification could I have for just doing sports and caring about it when I thought

there was so much more that I could bring to the table. And if touching on these issues in a way that I know that I would, is something that would draw even more people to the subject at hand so we can discuss it, debate it, and really, really provoke change for the better in this country. Why not do that? When you get angry feedback from people, is it more of the sports or is it more of the politics? Because what he always says, as soon as you open your mouth, half the country hates you. Have you found that? No question. There's no doubt about it. I don't care. Either the shape. I'm built for that because, you know, a lot of times when people see you They see me on television on ESPN. they see me as a pundit and a commentator they forget that i was a journalist for 30 years that's right and that you're trained as a journalist to not care about those things you know you need to be in tireless pursuit of the truth inching closer and closer to it every single day um and as long as you're doing that and you're conducting yourself with honor and integrity and you care about telling the truth or getting as close to it as you can as opposed to being agenda driven, then you know something? There's a lot of hate that comes with that because a lot of people want you to parrot this speech and say what they want you to say and think the way they want

you to think. I'm not that kind of guy. I think for me. I speak for me. And that's the way I've always been. And that's the way I'm going to always be. Well, I'm a big fan of yours. And one of the reasons is you're a self-described Democrat, but I find you often hard to pin down on issues. I think You're a free thinker.

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