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ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith said on Tuesday that the media’s role in concealing former President Joe Biden’s cognitive decline bolsters President Donald Trump’s claims about fake news and lawfare.
NewsNation host Chris Cuomo argued on May 21 that CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios reporter Alex Thompson’s new book “Original Sin” is a cover-up of the media’s past desire for Biden to defeat Trump, as it claims the former president’s inner circle hid his decline, hampering the media’s ability to cover it. Smith, on “The Stephen A. Smith Show,” said Cuomo was “absolutely right” and that it also “makes Trump look right” about several of his grievances.
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“It makes Trump look right. Because that hatred for him that led people to compromise their own professional principles just to ensure that he didn’t win the presidency — well, if you were willing to do that, then all of a sudden, does it not buffer his arguments about lawfare being exercised against him?” Smith asked. “Does it not buffer his arguments about fake news, fake news, fake news? Does it not buffer the credibility that comes to his arguments that it was a witch hunt? Does it not in some way buffer the notion that somebody might have cheated him in 2020?”
Trump faced four criminal cases during his 2024 presidential campaign, along with a civil fraud case brought by Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James, who campaigned on prosecuting him. He also faced two impeachments by Democrats during his first term in office, an investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into his 2016 campaign’s alleged links to Russia and a Democratic-led House committee investigation into the events surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
Former Attorney General William Barr repeatedly said that Mueller discovered no evidence to corroborate that Trump or his campaign colluded with Russians to influence the 2016 election.
Smith clarified that he did not agree with Trump’s claims of cheating taking place in the 2020 election.
“I don’t believe that … He lost that damn election. And I get that. I’m talking about him genuinely feeling cheated, as opposed to knowing he’s lying because, oh my God, the numbers say so,” he said. “Why should he give a damn? The rest of us — yes, why should he give a damn about the numbers? You see what hatred can do? You see what an absence of objectivity can do?”
“You see how the corrupt actions of a few — whether it’s him and a potpourri of his lies over the years, or Democrats and the lies that they were spewing leading up to the election — you see how we all got screwed?” he continued. “Because now the American people are sitting here not knowing what to believe or who to believe anymore. And then you wonder why I’m pissed.”
Smith in April 2024 contended that Trump’s New York criminal trial was an effort to prevent him from winning the 2024 election. Trump faced 34 felony counts pertaining to a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels and a jury ultimately found him guilty the following month.
“It’s much ado about nothing. To my liberal friends out there, all you’re doing is showing that you’re scared you can’t beat him on the issues and the merits,” Smith said in April 2024. “That’s why he keeps saying it’s a political campaign against me. That’s why he keeps saying they can’t beat me at the election, at the polls. This is the only way they can do it.”
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