ESPN host Stephen A. Smith on Tuesday called President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign “utterly embarrassing” and noted that he would back one GOP candidate before anyone else in the 2024 presidential race.
Smith appeared on the Fox News show “Hannity” days after publicly cringing at the thought of Biden getting a second term.
“Somebody’s gotta say it, so I’m gonna say it: We need a new president in 2024. We need a new president,” he said in his podcast on Friday, according to The Hill.
“I voted for him, and based on some of the leading candidates on the right side, I’d probably be forced to vote for him again ’cause they scare the living hell outta me with some of the things that they’re preaching about. But I wouldn’t like it,” Smith said.
On “Hannity,” Smith said in his opinion “there’s an abundance of people who can do better” than Biden.
“What I’m going to tell you is this: I’m looking at him, and I don’t like what I see. … I’m very concerned with what I’ve seen, and the fact that he’s going to be 82 years of age at election time,” Smith said.
Smith said liberals should do better.
“It is utterly embarrassing that the liberal side has him as their best candidate. What does it say about you when that is the best candidate that you can give the left? That is ridiculous,” he said.
On the show, Smith praised former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who entered the crowded Republican presidential field on Tuesday.
Is Joe Biden fit to be president?
“I understand that he’s got a gladiatorial attitude, and he’s ready to combat,” Smith said. “I think that he’s a guy that is not walking around and preaching about ‘rigged elections’ and all of this other stuff. He’s about moving the country forward.”
Smith said Christie is a longshot to defeat GOP front-runner former President Donald Trump.
“I’m not trying to campaign for Chris Christie or anything. The bottom line is he’s certainly not a liberal,” Smith replied.
“When you look at him, and I think that, you know, he’s competent and, more importantly, he’s going to be talking about issues as opposed to having us distracted with a whole bunch of nonsense that we don’t need to be distracted with as a country.
“That’s all I’m saying. Now, whether he wins or not, I know it’s a long shot,” he said, adding, “I’d vote for him before I’d vote for any of the Democratic candidates that I’ve seen.”
On Friday, Smith said that it is a worrisome sign that Biden is the Democratic Party’s candidate.
“What does it say about our country where we’re looking at an 80-year-old, who will be 82 if he wins the presidency again in 2024? What does it say about our country if that’s what we’re depending on?” he said then, according to Fox.
“I mean, to the Democrats, y’all ain’t got nobody? Nobody?”
