Stephen A. Smith is a New York Times Bestselling Author, Executive Producer, host of ESPN's First Take, and co-host of NBA Countdown. Stephen A. discusses Democratic Rep Adam Schiff calling on Joe Biden to step down as the Democratic Presidential nominee, the Project 2025 agenda, and Amber Rose news from the Republican National Convention.
The Republican National Convention kicked off Monday night in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as planned, despite the assassination attempt against Donald Trump on Saturday in Pennsylvania. After we taped our show on Monday, we learned that JD. Vance is Trump's selection as his running vice president. Vance will give a speech tonight for the first time as the vice presidential nominee. The first two days of the RNC have been highlighted by former Trump robbers like Nikki Haley and Ron Desantus. Last night stepped into the microphone to fully endorse him in front of the Republican delegation. We've also seen celebrities and influencers taking the stage to bat Trump, including Amberrose, who, by the way, I thought did a good job she spoke on Monday, and Dana White, who's expected to speak on Thursday before Trump.
Takes the stay to address his party.
Believe it or not, at this particular moment in time, that ain't the biggest news in politics. The biggest news is that Democratic representative out of California, the one and only Adam Schiff, one of Trump's biggest critics biggest cynics. He made an announcement just today, and he's the first Democrat to do so since the assassination attemp against Donald Trump, calling for President Joe Biden to step aside to not run for the presidency of the United States of America. As we speak, we're trying to reach out to Adam Shift. I don't think we'll be able to get him for today, but make no mistake about it, I plan on having them on in the next few days or so to hear what he said and why he's taking this step. He's running for his Senate seat in California, and obviously there's a lot going on in the state of California. We recently saw news that Elon Musk, owner of x formerly known as Twitter, has the to move his company's headquarters to Austin, Texas. He's departing from the San Francisco Bay Area. Alluded to the crime in the Bay area influencing his decision to make such a move, and he made sure to add, or at least the news reports made sure to add that indeed, he's going to be donating about forty five million dollars to a super pack in support of Donald Trump becoming the next president of the United States. The forty seventh president of the United States. So there's a lot going on and we've got to unpack it for what it is. First things first, about Adam Schiff, for him to call for Biden to step down is a huge, huge deal, because when you're running for a US Senate seat and you've already been on Capitol Hill all of these years and you're taking this position, make no mistake about it.
You ain't doing it by accident.
You're doing it because you know that you have a level of support behind you. Now, some polls have shown there's a number of Democrats who are adamantly against Joe Biden run in for reelection. I think the number was at seventeen before the assassination attempt against Donald Trump, and now it's increased even more according to some reports. Adam shift, in my opinion, taking this position on this particular day during the RNC, the Republican National Convention has been taking place over the last few days in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It's not an accident. He's seeing what's transpired. He's seeing what's unfolding before his very eyes. He's also seeing our president who clearly has lost a step, and he's saying enough's enough, and I don't blame him. Let me be very very clear, I don't blame him. I support Adam Shift's position, and I'm not apologizing for that to anybody. I'm getting sick and tired of people acting like somebody is insulting or denigrating Joe Biden by taking such a position.
It's just not true.
Don't fall for the okie dog. That's bs. That's not what's going on here. One of the things that we have to understand. Listen, ladies and gentlemen, social security exists in this world.
You know, once upon a time it was at age sixty five.
I think that I forgot what the number is today, but it's called retirement age.
Does that mean everybody needs to retire?
No?
Does that mean we should engage in ageism. No.
What it does mean is that, for the most part, you've lost a step as you age.
And when you've lost a step, the last thing you need to do is.
Be harnessing and an ordinate of increased responsibility on your shoulders, particularly when you seem to be fleeting, when you seem to be a bit more feeble, when you don't seem to be what you used to be it is not an insult that getst the President of the United States to say that this.
Is not about agism. Nancy Pelosi is eighty four.
Nobody has said anything to her about needing this step away because of her age, or because of a cognitive decline or anything like that. She's sharp as attack. Whether you agree or disagree with she's shoppers attack. Nobody has said anything about her. So this is not about age. This is about him, that man, President Joe Biden. And if you are liberal, if you are somebody on the left and you look at some of the policies that he has put forth, you don't really.
Have much of a problem with him.
We saw at their RNC we saw Marjorie Taylor Green lying through her teeth about how so many hundreds of thousands of Americans have lost jobs in the United States when under the Biden administration, according to CNN, it's increased by four point seven million, four point seven million more jobs. What is she talking about? So we know that's a lie. But the point is, no matter what you think about what job bidding has done, whether it's with the economy, whether it's with geopolitical relations, in terms of dealing with foreign.
Entities and what have you.
No matter what way you slice, you might look at him and say he's done a good job.
Some might say otherwise.
Obviously on the right, I'm saying it doesn't matter. We're not talking about what he's done. We're talking about looking at him and saying, are you confident.
He can give you four more years?
Ladies and gentlemen, there's a lot of folks wondering whether or not he can give you four more months. We've seen him, We've seen him walk, we've seen him talk, we've seen him stumble, we've seen him forget. You've got folks that even at the White House admitting that doctors specializing in Parkinson's disease have come to see him. Ladies, gentlemen, there is nothing wrong with saying to an eighty one year old who served thirty six years in the Senate, eight years in a White House, I'm sorry, you know, as a vice president, four years as the president.
Forty eight years total of service to this country.
There's nothing wrong with saying, we really appreciate what you've done.
It's time for somebody else.
There is nothing wrong with that. That is not insulting, that is not denigrating. That is an American citizen looking at the country, looking at the direction that we're going in, and you have a feeling one way or another about who's in office and whether or not he could give you four more years. And if you truly believe in Kamala Harris, what's the problem. If you truly believe in Gavin Newsoen.
What's the problem.
If you truly believe in a king Jefferes or Wes Moore or somebody else, what's the problem? You got a bullpen right, They're younger, more vibrant, more en itgized, clearly healthier, no evidence of cognitive decline from any of the names I've mentioned.
And beyond what's the problem, there is no problem.
Let's stop acting like, oh my god by calling for him to step away. You know we're in insulting here. We are doing no such thing. I'm gonna respect the office of the presidency of the United States. I'm not gonna disrespect the president. I might disagree, i might lament your actions on a case by case basis, but I'm not gonna denigrate and insult and be disrespectful to the President of the United States. I don't care who he is, and I'm certainly not doing that with Joe Biden, and neither is Adam Schiff, who has been a staunch supporter of his. We just got two eyes we could see, and the question is why won't y'all. You got about seventy two seventy three folks in the according to my research, about seventy three folks in the House and about twenty eight folks in the Senate, all over the age of seventy. We're not engaging in agism here. So it's not about that. What we're simply saying is, but when you get a certain age and we see slippage like we have seen with the president, what's the problem. What's the problem. I'm wondering why Joe Biden hasn't said anything, Why Hunter Biden hasn't said anything. That's your husband, that's your father, respectively. You got nothing to say, got nothing to say.
Hasn't he done enough? Hasn't he done enough?
And when you get a certain age and you've accomplished what Joe Biden has accomplished, one must ask themselves, Yo, do you want to lose this selection? Your legacy would be rock.
Solid if you walk away right now in a.
Lot of people's eyes. But if you lose the selection because you were refuse to step away when you know that.
Slippage, gona be aad to live that down.
I'm just saying, I've been watching the RNC convention each night in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
And I know that Amber Rose took a lot of hits. Y'all kick rocks with that. She did a good job. She did a good job. Let me tell y'all something right now. It ain't me.
Y'all don't want to accept what I'm saying. That's fine. I'm a centrist, Ladies and gentlemen. I don't operate on the fringes. I don't like extremes on either side. I don't like racist, I don't like bigots. I don't like those folks. I don't like folks on the extreme when you're talking about wok culture either where folks jobs could be on the line for mispronouncing the right the correct pronoun or something.
I don't like that.
I don't operate on the fringes. I'm a centrist. I voted for one Republican in my life. I ain't vote for Donald Trump. But I'll be damned if I'm not gonna vote Republican in the future based on some of the things that I've been seeing. It won't be for this guy. But I leave myself open. But most of the time I vote Democrats all the time. Only Republican I have voted for was Chris Christy for the governor of New Jersey. You see Monday's themes for the Republican National Convention. Make America wealthy once again, Tuesday, make America safe once again. Tonight, make America strong once again Thursday night, Make America great once again.
So you got wealthy, safe, strong and great.
Wealthy saved, strong and great, Wealthy safe, strong and great, Wealthy safe, strong, and great.
That's their theme. You want to laugh at it, that's fine, ladies and gentlemen. Is working. It's working.
Remember Trump got about eight percent of the black vote, and.
Was it twenty sixteen to twenty twenty.
You see somebody like Amber Rose, you hear about the potential of I'm not gonna even say names because I don't want to be wrong contributing who happened to be black to the Republican National Convention and performing or speaking on behalf of Trump. Yo, y'all this ain't Kanye West rolling into the White House calling Trump a superhero looking ridiculous.
This ain't that. Amber Rose gave a good speech.
She talked about grass, she talked about gas prices, she talked about.
Shopping, She talked about stuff that hits home. Okay, and.
With her twenty plus million social media followers, don't think people ignoring that.
You can act and you can dismiss it all you want to.
And there's a lot of people in the Republican Party didn't want her any part.
They didn't want her there at all.
But she's a conscientious observer and Trump knew what he was doing by making sure she was on that stage last night. Yeah, Nikki Haley looked like she was biting on damn tongue. She looked like she was sick to death having to sit up there and put her support behind Donald Trump.
Governor Florida Governor Ron DeSantis rolled out there, and even though he.
Gave Trump some props, he was more about speaking against the left. I thought he gave a powerful speech. He wasn't interested in being friendly. That's his mo oh okay, it worked. It worked for him in the gubernatorial race that he won by a landslide for the state of Florida.
It damn sure ain't gonna work for him in a general election.
That's why he's not the presidential nominee, the GOP nominee, because he got smoked by Trump.
And then we all know that. But here's the deal.
His speech was still strong because it spoke to a lot of people on the right who are clearly frustrated, and it also speaks to some independence not this one, but it speaks to some independents who are frustrated by some of the extremes that you see.
On the left.
So we got all of that going on, okay, But the one okay was Huckabee Sanders, the governor of Arkansas, the former press secretary for Donald Trump, the one who is the daughter of former Arkansas governor Huckabee I mean Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
She listened.
She gave a very very powerful speech when she called out MSNBC and talked about the insults, when she talked about her family being forced out of a restaurant, when she talked about a professor or a teacher rather of a three year old.
Spitting on her car. When she talked about these things, it hit home.
Because it showed a lack of decorum, a level of insensibilities. It showed all of those things. And so all I'm trying to say is that this ain't the typical. It might look that way when you look at the faces and you see.
Very very few black faces in the place. Yeah, that's true.
But let me tell you something. When you see the speakers and you hear the messages, this ain't the typical RNC convention. So you're the Democrats and your turns coming next month to Chicago, you better be ready. And Adam shiff is saying, we ain't ready if this is our nominee.
This supposed to be a roll called.
That the Democratic National Convention scaled back, you know, basically virally inserting President Biden at the Democratic nominee for the presidency. Well guess what they held off on that it's not an accident. Why stuff is getting thick up in here, and you gotta pay attention. And so now what's gonna happen is you're gonna see a lot of people and a lot of people's gonna be talking, and you know what's gonna come up, and it's gonna come up. And by the way, I'm not blaming the Democrats for this. Were gonna hear a lot more about Project twenty twenty five. We gonna hear about Project twenty twenty five. Now, for those of you that shouldn't, that don't know, that been living under rock and want to make sure I read it, because I'm quoting it accurately. Project twenty Project twenty twenty five, also known as the Presidential Transition Project, is a text produced by right wing think tank and lobby group the Heritage Foundation, which is intended to serve as a guidebook for a future conservative administration. Donald Trump and his campaign team have officially distanced themselves from Project twenty twenty five's radical blueprint, yet several key figures behind the project have political ties to the former president. Now, ladies and gentlemen, this is a lengthy document, about nine hundred pages. Some of the policies it proposes have garnered widespread attention, including bringing federal agencies under more direct control of the president, a rollback on environmental commitments, and of course, abolishing the Department of Education. These are the kind of things that they're talking about here. It's essentially a map for ultra conservative activists to ensrine their agenda should Trump win. Now, what they'll tell you is with or without Trump, they've been doing this since the Reagan administration, and they're gonna keep on doing.
This for years and years to years and for years and years to come. That's what they're talking about here.
When you talk about federal agencies, it proposes a scale down.
I'm reading here. I'm reading here.
Proposes a scale down federal government, including the abolishment of multiple agencies, including the Department of Education, Department of Homeland Security, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, whose remaining departments would be folded into other agencies or privatized, including the Transportation Security Administration. How about transgender rights. Transgender rights and gender identity beyond biological sects are roundly rejected, with such steps as reinstating the ban on transgender Americans serving in the military, prohibiting public school educators from referring to students by anything other than their birth name and pronouns without parental commission permission, and ensuring no federal funds are used to provide gender affirming care. DEI and LGBTQ Rights Project twenty twenty five seeks to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs from throughout the federal government and in universities. And while it doesn't outlaw same sex marriage, it supports quote unquote nuclear families that include a married mother, father, and their children, and calls for restricting laws that barred discrimination on a basis of sex to exclude sexual orientation and gender identity.
Last, but lat least.
I mean, it's a lot more, but I'm gonna read one last one.
This is about abortion.
While Project twenty twenty five doesn't explicitly call for an abortion band, it would take many steps to restrict the procedure, including directing the Food and Drug Administration.
To revoke its approval of abortion.
Drug mife for pristone or mife pristone mife pristone PRIs tone, using the Comstock Act to block any abortion equipment or medication from being mailed, which abortion rights advocates have said would be a backdoor way the band abortion, barring federal funds being used to provide health care coverage for abortion, and requiring states to report all abortions that take place there to the federal government.
So there you have it.
You're gonna hear the Democrats leaning on this heavily, because you see, since the assassination attempt against Donald Trump, you're fading. I said it to you one day, I'm gonna say it again. Goes to the ground, jumped on by Secret servicemen. They're getting them up. He says, let me get my shoe.
He gets up.
Blood is streaming down the right side of his ear and his face and what have you. And in the midst of all of that, while surrounded by Secret Service agents, he raises his fists and screams fight, fight, Fight three times. And the American flag is behind him. The Associated Press has that photo. I don't know why we don't have yet, but their Associated Press has it. It's the American flag behind them. You can't buy a better photo. As a politician, you cannot buy a better photo. And what did they talk about at the RNC, especially Lauren Trump, his daughter in law. His strength in that moment of adversity, of fear, you know, with his life on the line.
Look at what he did. Look at the strength he showed, Look at the look at the fervor, look.
At the figure, look at the tenacity, look at his determination.
That's what they were saying.
You and I both know that's the last thing they've said about Joe Biden over the last few months. So this is where we are. Project twenty twenty five was relevant to bring up because it highlights what the Democrats will likely address an attack, and most importantly, when what they have to they have nothing else to stand doing.
To their critics to the left, sure, but to independence.
To folks on the right, No, you say the economy is doing great, they say inflation.
You say we're safe.
They're looking at folks assaulting folks and getting arrested and getting let out of jail. The same day you say, our borders are you know, it's a crisis that's existed through various administrations. They're like, no, we ain't seeing it. When ten and a half million immigrants have crossed our borders illegally, that's how they're looking at it. None of they ain't trying to hear that. So if you're the Democrats, here's what you gotta do. Project twenty twenty five.
Abortion, I read it.
I done read everything to you. Federal government overseeing certain programs abortion DEI LGBTQ community. So you've got gays, you've got transgender folks, You've got women overall, You've got education, because they're talking about educators and essentially accusing educators of indoctrinating young children, and they're gonna put a stop to it. They're talking about a level of institutional and government control that Democrats will argue will take us back to the sixties. They're going to say that it is jeopardizing, if not flat out going after in an effort to confiscate the rights we've worked decades to capture, if not longer, which ultimately means it's gonna come down to race and gender.
That's what it's gonna do, which essentially is gonna.
Throw out everything I said about the need to have the quorum and to make make sure that we're not doing the kind of things.
That incite anybody. Let's tone down that rhetoric.
The Republicans clearly ain't trying to do that, and I suspect the Democrats won't do it either. So as things change, it will stay the same. It's about to get uglier, not ugly, to the point of what happened this past Saturday. I'm talking about the rhetoric. It's about to heat up, y'all. It's about to heat up