Stephen A. Smith is a New York Times Bestselling Author, Executive Producer, host of ESPN's First Take, and co-host of NBA Countdown.
Let's turn into politics for a quick second here before I get into P Diddy. I'll get into that in a second, but I want to do this politics thing right here, because Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, has begun a media blitz. With just four weeks to go before the election. Harris and are running Minnesota governor Tim Walls are set to appear in a handful of interviews with traditional and new media figures this month. The two sat down with Sixty Minutes for a pair of interviews that will air this week. Harris is also scheduled to sit down with The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Howard Sterns Show, and the View. The media blitz from Harrison Walls comes after weeks of criticism from Republicans who've accused the pair of avoiding taking questions from the media. I can't be happier personally speaking. I would like to see them both go into enemy territory because in my opinion, it's real easy to go and sit down with people who are clearly in opposition of the other camp. So when you are neutral, or you are somebody that is the opposite, or or an adversarial adversarial person for the competition in favor of the competition. I don't have a problem with that because to me, that's where real questions get asked, and nobody can accuse something of being softball. Not saying they're all softball questions, but people can make those accusations, and that's not healthy for a cynical society that's looking for an excuse to point the finger at you that you ain't stepping up, that you ain't embracing competition, that you're not accepting it, you're not doing those things. I don't like that. I don't like that. Now I'm gonna sit up there and tell you right now, I've made it a point to highlight the fact. Then I'm gonna vote for Kamala Harris. But I don't sit up there and say to you, I'm not gonna vote for Trump because of politics, because I believe the world is cyclical. Sometimes you need different things, Sometimes you need different policies compared to what you may need at other times, and the prism of history usually tells us who's more effective a commander in chief than somebody else. But when I think about Trump, I think about the fact that the presidency is supposed to be about statesmanship. It's supposed to be about galvanizing Americans and bringing us all together for a common cause and making sure we understand that you don't just say America first, we epitomize America first, because we take care of one another. And when I see any politician only doing that for their constituency, their supporters and saying the hell with everybody else, I get very very concerned. Now in the case of Kamala Harris, to be fair, what am I saying about her? You got to go out there and do those interviews. Biden wasn't doing interviews. There was no primary. After there was no primary, and he shows up June twenty seventh and went to bed during the debate against Donald Trump, which ultimately facilitated him stepping out of the race and propelling you to be in the Democratic nominee for the presidency of the United States. You didn't have to go through a primary either, And the last time we saw you in a primary, you couldn't even make it to Aisle. So again, can you stand in the heat? I believe Kamala Harris can't. I just want to see her show the world. She can now. She did it in the debate. Don't care what anybody said. She smoked Trump. During that debate he babbled on where they're eating pets, they're eating dogs, they're eating cats, remember that? And he looked ultimately silly, and Kamala Harris had a field day with them. But then JD. Van showed up in the vice presidential debate against Tim, against Tim Walls, and everybody want to say he was lying, he was lying, he was lying about this, he was lying about that, or Tim Wall seemed nervous, nervous, nervous. Here's the reality. Tim Walt's job was to make JD. Vance look as radical as he had appeared to be in the past, on top of the fact that you had to make him look like not so much of a nice guy, and you didn't do that. As a result, that's why this media blitz is necessary. And you're Kamala Harris. You gotta show up and you gotta answer questions whether or not your flip flop, What are your positions, why are those positions such as they are, et cetera, et cetera. What about the economy, what about inflation? How are you gonna sit up there and tell us that people making under four hundred thousand dollars ain't gonna get taxed extra. But we got trillion. You got trillions of dollars in debt. Why are we gonna pay it back? These are questions that deserve to be asked and deserve an answer, a truthful answer that allows us to say we agree or we disagree. Now I know that's saying, hey, what about him? Because he never tells the truth? As in Donald Trump. That may be the case, but you have people on the right who have said, hey, he has a record, because he's already sat in that seat and we have four years of him, I'm governing. The world was divisive. He didn't make it any better. It seemed to be chaos. All of those things are true, But in the end they were able to point to an economy that existed before COVID came along and say he did. All right, So which side are you taking? We don't know. You know how we find out the interviews. Interviews that are conducted by folks who are very objective and neutral and piercing and probing in their deliveries, in their presentations to make sure they send the message that this ain't about whether I like you or not. This is about how much the American people should like you or not. You see who Trump has talked to. You see who Kamala Harris is planning on talking to if she hasn't already at some point in time. A neutral party who doesn't give a shit about either side is what we're after when it comes to asking these questions. That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying.