Stephen A. Smith Goes on ESPN, Challenges Trump After President Questioned His IQ

ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith is not exactly known for being demure, conciliatory or quiet.

So when President Donald Trump took a jab at the outspoken talking head on Monday evening, it was all but assured that Smith would respond.

But even Smith’s staunchest supporters may have noticed something a bit odd about Smith’s on-air rebuttal.

To wit, on Monday, the San Antonio Spurs beat the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden in Game 3 of the NBA Finals, halting a playoff win streak from the home team and giving San Antonio new life in the series (New York leads 2-1).

In other words, you already know that Knicks fans were ready to blame Trump’s presence at Game 3 (the president is a lifelong Knicks fan) for the home team losing — including Smith.

In fact, Smith had made it clear before the game that he didn’t want Trump at Game 3, for fear that he could ruin the vibes of a Knicks team that had been firing on all cylinders prior to Monday’s loss.

“He’s coming to Game 3 of the Finals, and I don’t want him there,” Smith said on his radio show, per Outkick.

“It has nothing to do with politics, policy, or anything like that,” Smith explained. “It has everything to do with him disrupting and contributing at the same time to the chaos that’s going to exist at Madison Square Garden. If it were Barack Obama coming to the Garden, I would say, ‘Stay home.’ Stay at the White House.”

Well, given that the Knicks lost, Trump was naturally asked about Smith’s forewarning on Monday night, after the game.

Take a look at the exchange for yourself:

Reporter: Stephen A. Smith said he would blame you if the Knicks lost tonight how do you respond

Donald Trump: I think he’s a nice guy but you need a certain aptitude to run for president. You need a high IQ, I don’t really think Stephen A Smith has that

LLLMMFFAAOOOOOOOO pic.twitter.com/8nodMdflUh

— Ahmed/The Ears/IG: BigBizTheGod 🇸🇴 (@big_business_) June 9, 2026

“ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith — who has talked about running for president — said he would blame you if the Knicks lost the game,” a reporter said. “How do you respond to that?”

“I think he’s a nice guy,” Trump said. “But you need a certain aptitude to run for president. You need a high IQ. I’m not sure that Stephen has that. I don’t think he does, actually.”

Smith, predictably, responded to Trump’s remarks on Tuesday morning’s episode of “First Take,” one of Smith’s flagship shows — and did so against an oddly presidential backdrop:

Stephen A Smith responds to Donald Trump calling him a low IQ individual on First Take:

“You wanna talk about IQ, I could say I could put my IQ against yours, I got something even better I could ask you why you been running from me for the past year since I asked you to talk to… https://t.co/iI1DpLjkRb pic.twitter.com/Edon6R1fzF

— Ahmed/The Ears/IG: BigBizTheGod 🇸🇴 (@big_business_) June 9, 2026

“You want to talk about IQ, I could say I’d put my IQ up against yours any day of the week,” Smith began. “I could go one better. I could ask you why you’ve been running from me the last year, since I wanted to talk to you.

“I could ask you to debate me since you think you’re that dude. We can go a myriad of ways with all of this.”

Alas, a presidential debate won’t be possible, even should Smith actually run for president, as Trump is termed out.

But a televised debate on ESPN? That might actually draw viewers to the otherwise languishing network.

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