Stephen A. Smith Says Trump Beat ‘Racist’ Charge Because He Had ‘Portfolio Of Appearances With Black Folks’

Superstar commentator Stephen A. Smith told comic, pundit, and podcast host Bill Maher that President-elect Donald Trump beat the charge that he’s racist because Trump has “a portfolio of appearances with Black folks” going back decades.

Smith was the guest on this week’s edition of Maher’s Club Random Podcast. during which a good chunk of time during was spent discussing Trump’s surprisingly decisive victory in the presidential election.

Racism was a prominent theme in the election, and in Maher’s discussion with Smith — who said that Black people and minorities who called Trump racist “did him a favor”:

STEPHEN A. SMITH: Let me break a little news here. Black people, minorities in this country that called him a racist did him a favor when they did that.

BILL MAHER: Interesting.

STEPHEN A. SMITH: They did him a favor because it galvanized his base to say “We ahh, we not want to hear that. They that look at the economy, look at the borders, look at crimes in the streets of America. We don’t want to hear that!”.

And he’s able to easily dismiss that because on too many occasions you saw him on camera very comfortable with minorities.

So because of that, the visual that you talk about, it played a role because he knew he had a he had a portfolio of appearances with Black folks throughout decades where you had no problem with him then?

How all of a sudden are you going to bring up for rent control issues in 1973? That’s not going to work. That’s not going to work.

If you if you’re going to bring up him in the 1970s when his daddy owned apartment complexes and minorities was in in those complexes, then don’t you have to bring up Biden and his relationship with Senator Byrd, who was who was from West Virginia, who died at the age of 97, that was in office until he was about 97.

BILL MAHER: Also–.

STEPHEN A. SMITH: Who by the way, was a former member of the Ku Klux Klan. You have to bring that up. Don’t you have to bring up don’t you have to bring them the 90s when (crosstalk) the Congressional Black Caucus and you talking about the crime bill that Clinton pushed through that Biden was so vociferous about. You have to bring this stuff up. You’re going to bring up Trump in the 70s.

So I’m listening to people and I’m like, Are you trying to win or are you just trying to make noise because he’s going to get past this. That strategy is not going to work.

At the time, the Congressional Black Caucus supported the 1994 crime bill. The late Senator Robert Byrd’s association with the Klan was well-known — and widely viewed as at odds with his views later in life.

Watch above via Bill Maher’s Club Random Podcast.