We Fact-Checked Stephen A.'s LeBron and Kobe Story — and Polled 1,000+ Voters on His Presidential Campaign

Did LeBron attend Kobe's memorial in 2020? Pablo reports on claims renewed by Stephen A. Smith. And should Stephen A. actually run in 2028? We commissioned Rasmussen Reports to conduct a legitimate political survey, then presented the results to Wyatt Cenac and Tim Miller. • See the full results of the exclusive PTFO/Rasmussen poll https://www.rasmussenreports.com/ • Subscribe to Wyatt Cenac's newsletter https://wyattcenac.substack.com/ • Subscribe to The Bulwark Podcast with Tim Miller https://www.thebulwark.com/s/bulwarkpodcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Pablo Torre?

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• 0:44Pablo Torre?

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• 1:28Pablo Torre?

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• 2:11Pablo Torre?

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• 2:56Pablo Torre?

  I'm Pablo Torre, and this episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out is brought to you by Remy Martin 1738 Accord Royale. Exceptionally smooth cognac for all your game day festivities. Please drink responsibly. Because today, we're going to find out what this sound is.

• 3:14Speaker 02

  If that name had been Pikachu, do you think it would have also gotten 2%?

• 3:20Pablo Torre?

  Right after this ad.

• 3:22Speaker 03

  You're listening to Giraffe King's Network.

• 3:38Pablo Torre?

  We have paperwork in front of us. Tim Miller, Wyatt Sinak, reuniting. Not an expert panel, but almost like an exploratory committee.

• 3:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, an exploratory committee.

• 3:47Pablo Torre?

  That's a term of art in politics, isn't it, Tim?

• 3:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, oh yeah, I've been on a couple of those.

• 3:50Pablo Torre?

  You have?

• 3:51Speaker 02

  For Jeb and John Huntsman. More often than not, it's a candidate that is like, I want to see if the water's warm for me.

• 3:57Pablo Torre?

  And Wyatt, I do want to just establish the following question. Have you been following this feud between Stephen A. Smith and LeBron James?

• 4:06Speaker 02

  A little bit. I have a Twitter level of knowledge about this. I have a Mastodon level knowledge. Is that more or less?

• 4:14Pablo Torre?

  Less, I think. Well, we can just watch this.

• 4:18Speaker 04

  I am pleading with LeBron James as a father. Stop this. Stop this. We all know that Bronny James is in the NBA because of his dad. And I turn around and he's right here in my face. He said, yo,

• 4:40Speaker 04

  you got to stop talking [BLEEP] about my son. You got to stop [BLEEP] with my son. That's my son. That's my son. And I was like, what? I thought it was weak.

• 4:50Speaker 04

  I thought it was some bull

• 4:51Speaker 05

  He's like on a Taylor Swift Yeah. tour run right now. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we're watching. Yeah. We're awesome. He's gonna be smiling from ear to ear when he hears me talking about him. Oh, my God. He's gonna get home and grab some ice cream out of the freezer and sit in his chair in his tighty whities on the couch.

• 5:10Pablo Torre?

  Which led to Stephen A. Smith going on First Take and escalating all of this by saying this.

• 5:16Speaker 04

  I suggested he be happy with the things that I haven't brought up. I never brought up really and never really discussed why you were not at Kobe Bryant's memorial service. I never really.

• 5:27Pablo Torre?

  And so this is where I need to start today before we get into our packet of research because the question that is embedded in what Stephen A.'s take was there was obviously explosive. It got aggregated. There's a community note over on X and the community note said this, quote, "This is incorrect. LeBron was in attendance, according to the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and Entertainment Tonight. They all list James as among the attendees at the memorial. LeBron James requested to not be filmed at the memorial." And Stephen A. Smith, during the show, apologized on air and also on Twitter, saying that he misspoke.

• 6:04Speaker 02

  Can I just ask, what is even that theory? Like, why would this be a slight? Like, what are people upset about? I don't know. Yeah, I guess that's the part I don't get. That part. Why is this a thing that merits a cover up? What would be the failure of LeBron here that people would be upset about? And also, if he didn't go to this funeral, what's the big deal?

• 6:26Pablo Torre?

  Right.

• 6:26Speaker 02

  Like, he's like, yeah, why, like, why does he have to attend every basketball funeral?

• 6:33Pablo Torre?

  This was kind of a state funeral. In the world of politics, have you ever been to a state funeral of any kind?

• 6:41Speaker 02

  Um, no, I mean, I've been to, I guess, the viewing in the rotunda. But I've never got to, like, go to the A-list funeral. You know, maybe one of these days, but that is a big deal. Mark Leibowitz's book like starts at. The McCain funeral and it's like all the who's sitting next to who. So there is a lot of, you know, political drama around, you know, around these sorts of events.

• 7:05Pablo Torre?

  Yeah. Have you ever been to an A-list funeral, Wyatt?

• 7:07Speaker 02

  No, I just go to the after parties.

• 7:09Pablo Torre?

  Hmm.

• 7:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:10Pablo Torre?

  This A-list service, to be very clear, LeBron's attendance at the memorial service turned out to be a subject, uh, according to a high level source that is close to the Lakers. Quote, "A topic that people throughout the Lakers organization, top to bottom, have been grousing about for years. LeBron James to put us back in January of 2020." Right? So the tragedy happens. And LeBron James in public, he really did take the lead on being a spokesperson. He spoke up in a team meeting reportedly saying, quote, "God gave me wide shoulders for a reason." He got a tattoo of Kobe Bryant, the Mamba, posted on Instagram.

• 7:50Pablo Torre?

  And then before the Lakers' first home game after the crash, he tossed his notes aside and gave a speech at center court.

• 7:58Speaker 05

  Now, I got something, um, written down.

• 8:04Speaker 05

  You know, they asked me to kind of stay on course or whatever the case may be, but,

• 8:09Speaker 05

  Laker Nation, man, I would be selling y'all short if I read off this [BLEEP], so I'm gonna go straight from the heart.

• 8:16Pablo Torre?

  And then he even dunked like Kobe Bryant and he equated the dunk to the Marlon Wayans classic, The Sixth Man, by saying, quote, "Kobe came down, put himself in my body and gave me that dunk on that brick." And he even referenced the upcoming memorial himself. And so what I wanted to do was just take a fact-based approach to this question, uh, Tim and Wyatt. And so what we did here at Palatory Finds Out was talk to eight sources who are directly familiar with this situation to get to the bottom of a mystery that has been hiding allegedly in plain sight.

• 8:48Speaker 02

  I'm fascinated.

• 8:48Pablo Torre?

  It's there's.

• 8:50Speaker 02

  Waiting with bated breath. That was the result. I just want to know why Byron Scott told you all this. Or Nick Van Axel.

• 8:57Pablo Torre?

  So.

• 8:59Pablo Torre?

  This memorial service, it was Lakers executives, the producers of the Grammy Awards. It was Vanessa Bryant, Kobe's widow, Gigi's mother, all of these people in this planning group, creating a live, televised memorial at Staples Center in the arena itself. That was intended, again, to be both very personal, but also incomparable in how A-list, and exclusive, and produced, the whole spectacle was going to be. It was February 24th, 2020, which happens to have been the day my daughter was born. So Violet came into the world, I missed all of this, and so my-

• 9:33Speaker 02

  You didn't have the memorial on in the hospital?

• 9:35Pablo Torre?

  Second screen. Yeah, it was the view of my wife's birth canal, and then Michael Jordan crying.

• 9:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, that would have been good Instagram content.

• 9:45Pablo Torre?

  And I'm just investigating these claims, to be very, very clear, on a purely factual basis. Like, I'm not here to talk about motives, but claim number one, there's a video of Diana Taurasi, who spoke at the memorial, UConn basketball star, one of the great basketball players ever, and she told a joke while complimenting 11-year-old Gigi Bryant and her level of skill, and it sounded like this. I mean, who has a Turner Ray fadeaway jumper at 11? LeBron barely got it today.

• 10:14Speaker 02

  It's a roast?

• 10:15Pablo Torre?

  Which is a pretty good joke, a pretty bold joke from Taurasi, from the GOAT. And she does, by the way, gesture off-screen, left, but what we did, of course, was look at multiple angles of the broadcast, of that very direction, at various points in the broadcast, and no LeBron James. You see Pau Gasol-

• 10:34Speaker 02

  James Worthy.

• 10:35Pablo Torre?

  You see James Worthy, that's right.

• 10:36Speaker 02

  James Worthy, your source. Kuz.

• 10:39Pablo Torre?

  That is not what I'm saying.

• 10:40Speaker 02

  Kuz is outfit.

• 10:41Pablo Torre?

  Kuz is wearing the big glasses, the big sunglasses.

• 10:43Speaker 02

  Oh, wow, yeah. Is he also wearing those super-long sleeves?

• 10:46Pablo Torre?

  I like to think that his black tie was super-long sleeves as well.

• 10:52Speaker 02

  Like, this is a common tactic, you know?

• 10:54Pablo Torre?

  A rhetorical gesture.

• 10:55Speaker 02

  A rhetorical tactic, you're gesturing at somebody, I don't think there's anything to go with there.

• 11:00Pablo Torre?

  No visible LeBron at all in the photography, and then what I did was confirm, with multiple sources, that Diana Taurasi never saw LeBron James at the memorial that day.

• 11:12Pablo Torre?

  So she, this person, held up as the proof, did not see LeBron that day. So, claim number two. LeBron James was there, but he chose to be left off-camera. And what we did was we talked to a lead producer on the memorial, a longtime award show producer named Ron Basile. Ron Basile helped coordinate everything from Beyonce's 6:40 a.m. soundcheck to Michael Jordan's eulogy. And the producer told us when we asked him about any directive from LeBron James about having him on camera, quote, "The off-camera thing is bullsh*t", end quote. And so, I want to be careful here, but he wasn't stage left, he wasn't off-camera. And we can further tell you

• 11:57Pablo Torre?

  that according to two additional, independent, high-level sources involved in the planning of this whole event who were in attendance, what they tell us here at Pablo Torre Finds Out is that they did not see LeBron in the building. They don't know of a single person who did see him in the building. And one of the people who did not see LeBron at all that day was, in fact, Lakers owner, Jeanie Buss. So, as one of the sources who spent that morning in the event's VIP areas says of LeBron, quote, "There's no f-ing way he was there. If he was there, he was Casper the ghost", end quote. My personal belief, by the way, is that I don't care how anyone chooses to grieve at all.

• 12:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:41Pablo Torre?

  But LeBron James, the face of the Lakers, who got the tattoo, gave the speech at center court, threw away his notes, was the face of mourning for this person. What LeBron did not do was what LeBron himself had chosen to do in the weeks before. LeBron did not take center stage at all. And multiple high-level sources told us that LeBron was not invited to speak at Kobe's memorial. We had a third source involved in the planning of this. Go back to an early wish list of speakers and performers. This was shared between the Lakers, Vanessa Bryant, event producers. And as this third source puts it, quote, "He's not on the list. Vanessa's on all these emails. It wasn't just the Lakers. It was a family thing. There was a lot of emotion. The word LeBron isn't even in here." We did reach out to LeBron's camp,

• 13:26Pablo Torre?

  and they did not comment, which is totally fair. They also wanted to make clear that they're not talking about anything that has to do with Stephen A. Smith. But LeBron's agent, Rich Paul, told Stephen A. Smith himself at the time that LeBron was, quote, "in his own space." A very carefully worded answer for was LeBron at the memorial service. And LeBron was asked for comment at Lakers practice by ESPN's Dave McMenamin the day after the memorial, and LeBron's answer is conveniently on tape. Did you attend the ceremony?

• 13:58Speaker 05

  Um, like I said, man, it was just, um, I respect your question, for sure. Very emotional, very emotional day, very tough day for myself and my family, for everyone involved. One thing I can, one thing I can come out and say how strong and how bold and how powerful Vanessa is, to stand up there the way she did, to give the speech the way she gave that speech, I commend her. My heart is with their family still, with his three daughters that are still here, with his wife, with his mom and dad, his sister.

• 14:40Speaker 05

  It was just a very difficult day, obviously a celebration, but it's a difficult day for all of them. I appreciate it.

• 14:51Pablo Torre?

  So in that answer, you heard what?

• 14:54Speaker 02

  That he wasn't there. The guy, the white guy in the corner with the cellphone, they were taping it, his face kind of reflected everything, which was kind of like, I don't, I don't think you're actually answering, like, why are you talking about this? Like, what is your non-answer? So, I, I don't know, but it seems like it would be a no to me. Yeah, that didn't- Was there not a follow-up question?

• 15:18Pablo Torre?

  That's where it was left for roughly, uh, five years, until I realized that this would be a thing that no one had actually followed up on satisfactorily. And by the way, what I want to make very clear is that I don't think that LeBron was obligated to do anything. There is stuff under the surface here that, um, I can't fully definitively say-

• 15:44Speaker 02

  It feels like Vanessa Bryant is the key source here, so I don't know who your sources are, but it is notable that in his answer, he goes rightly into a, like, a very lavish compliment of her. He was like, "I commend her and it was a great celebration." It feels like that was, that'd be the point person to untangle this. You know, Pablo, if you know this, when Trump won the first time and I went to a place of dark depression, when I was like, I should quit politics, through a friend, I interviewed with the Lakers to be their flack.

• 16:13Pablo Torre?

  Is that right?

• 16:13Speaker 02

  And yeah, and I had an interview with them and with Genie and them. It was very pleasant. It just wasn't really a fit for a variety of reasons. But like, I'm hearing this whole story and like imagining that alternate life for me.

• 16:27Speaker 02

  I'm like trying to spin this. I'm like, who am I spinning for right now? Genie or LeBron or Kobe's legacy and Pablo's calling me? I'm happy to be on this side of the mic, I guess, and to not be a Lakers flack trying to navigate the Kremlinology of the Kobe funeral.

• 16:44Pablo Torre?

  It is. It's genuine. It is Kremlinology. It is. What are people not saying but clearly feeling? What are the power dynamics and incentives at play? And why won't Tim Miller [bleep] return my calls?

• 16:56Speaker 02

  Why won't you just answer this? Was he there?

• 16:58Pablo Torre?

  All of which is to say that what I'm trying to get the answer to that question, we were also conducting a legitimate political poll about whether one of the people involved in this would be a legitimate candidate for president of the United States.

• 17:11Speaker 02

  Hey, I mean, I'm not looking forward to where this is going.

• 17:33Pablo Torre?

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• 18:03Pablo Torre?

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• 18:47Pablo Torre?

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• 19:32Pablo Torre?

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• 20:16Pablo Torre?

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• 21:05Pablo Torre?

  These packets in front of us are the results of a truly exhaustive attempt relative to the just pure speculation that is surrounded whether Stephen A. Smith is actually going to do the thing that he's been talking about for months now and actually run for president.

• 21:23Speaker 02

  No.

• 21:25Speaker 04

  And, you know, I'm half joking, but I kind of mean it. I mean, I have no desire to be a congressional figure or a senator. But if you came to me and you told me I had a legitimate shot to win the presidency of the United States of America, I would definitely consider it. But I, here's the problem. So you want to break through the line? Oh, yeah, that's right. I'm a moderate, I'm a centrist, and I'm the kind of person that, do I believe that if I committed myself to knowing politics the way you and others know it, do I believe I could win a Democratic nomination? Hell, yes. Particularly the state of affairs that exists. I think it would be a cakewalk. I think I'd take them all out. I really, really believe that. I really think I could take them.

• 22:09Pablo Torre?

  Wyatt. Welcome to the exploratory committee Wyatt Cenac. You didn't know you were joining it?

• 22:14Speaker 02

  No, but that's also bullshit. Like, everything he's saying is bullshit. There's just like, like, he's like, oh, if I, if I put the time in, I could totally run for president. He might as well say like, ah, if I put six months in, I could totally fight Mike Tyson. Like, there's like, all he's doing is just talking. There's nothing serious. He is the most unserious human being who just likes the attention. And that is what you are giving him with this. Congratulations, Pablo. You just fell into the trap. The egomaniac wants people to talk about him. And you just did it. And you tricked me and Tim into taking part of this. And I want no part of it, Pablo.

• 22:59Speaker 02

  I don't want it. Because he doesn't want this. He just wants attention. I'm kind of intrigued, on the other hand. Damn it, Tim. Damn it. I thought you were with me. I'm spiritually with you, but I don't know. My shadow self is, is tingling. Don't let the shadow emerge. My shadow self is tingling.

• 23:22Pablo Torre?

  I find it hard to disagree with Wyatt's fundamental point. But I also deeply value him as an important part of the exploratory committee.

• 23:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, same.

• 23:29Pablo Torre?

  Which is like, the guy who's going to actually...

• 23:32Speaker 02

  The hostage in the exploratory committee?

• 23:34Pablo Torre?

  The hostage slash, uh, opposition opinionist who's going to establish that the research that we are presenting, um, should be viewed with a healthy dose of what Wyatt, I believe, expressed as bullshit.

• 23:49Speaker 02

  Is there any way that... It's kind of like running the red team. We have a red team project. Like, you pretend like you're on the other side. And so we'll have you on the exploratory committee pretending like you're hostile. But really, you're just kind of testing... And out the ways for Stephen A. To, you know, defeat his haters. Sure. To help me do this, is there any way we could get like some rope to tie me to this chair? So that to anyone watching on YouTube, they can see, I wanted no part of this. I'm clearly a hostage in this conversation.

• 24:17Pablo Torre?

  All we have are two bottles of Remy Martin and a hat. So.

• 24:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'll take some booze.

• 24:22Pablo Torre?

  We might need to, we might need to dip into the reserves early. But the thing that kickstarted this whole enterprise truly is that there was this single throwaway question in a McLaughlin poll in January that went viral immediately because it gave Stephen A. Smith, Wyatt Snack's favorite person, a 2% chance as a wild card against a field of 15 other potential candidates for the 2028 Democratic primary. And Stephen A. Goes on Hannity and he says he had no business being on that list.

• 24:50Speaker 02

  He did not.

• 24:52Pablo Torre?

  And so we wanted to actually fact check this. Like, okay, that's one throwaway line in a poll. What if we committed actual time to trying to do an exclusive Pablo Torre finds out first of its kind political poll?

• 25:05Speaker 02

  Before you go into this, though, can I just ask a question?

• 25:08Pablo Torre?

  Yes.

• 25:08Speaker 02

  So there was a poll where they had 15 names or was it 16?

• 25:12Pablo Torre?

  15 other potential candidates.

• 25:14Speaker 02

  So they had all of these names and Stephen A. Smith's name is on there.

• 25:21Pablo Torre?

  Yeah.

• 25:21Speaker 02

  And he gets 2%. If that name had been Pikachu, do you think it would have also gotten 2%? Like, it wasn't like, I don't, I just feel like the fact that you're putting the name on the list legitimizes the name in a way that at least a few people will be like, I'll check that box. Sure.

• 25:43Pablo Torre?

  To Wyatt's point, polling as an instrument, flawed, limited, right? There's an epistemological question of like chicken or egg. Is this real because you asked about it or is this real because someone felt away about it when you asked them about it? So all of that is a very useful, both qualitative and quantitative context. For the fact that we commissioned a legitimate survey with. Rasmussen of 1,021 likely American voters with dozens of questions conducted over two days, online and by phone. Basic demographics of the survey, 52% women, 33% Democratic, 35% Republican, 32% unaffiliated.

• 26:25Pablo Torre?

  And Rasmussen, Tim, you know, again, it's a public opinion firm that is a thing. It's a real thing.

• 26:31Speaker 02

  Rasmussen is a legitimate polling operation.

• 26:35Pablo Torre?

  Can we dive into these cross tabs?

• 26:37Speaker 02

  What's doing?

• 26:38Pablo Torre?

  Chart number one, we asked a survey of 1,021 likely American voters. Who would you consider a stronger Democratic candidate for president? Hillary Clinton in 2016 got 36%. Stephen A. Smith in 2028 got 34%. Not sure, coming in strong with 30%.

• 27:00Speaker 02

  I would assume that most of the people that took the poll were familiar with the fact that Hillary Clinton lost in 2016. So they're they have like that kind of base bias here when they're trying to answer this question. Well, you know, so, so even if Stephen A. Smith had a 2% chance of winning, you would think, well, that would be better than the 0% chance that Hillary ended up with. So, so I'm not fully, my, my brain isn't fully blown by this quite yet. Yeah. Who would you consider the stronger candidate? The person who you know, lost in the past, or the person who in the future, who knows what could happen?

• 27:34Pablo Torre?

  On that note, chart number two. Same question, except Joe Biden in 2024.

• 27:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:42Pablo Torre?

  Coming in at 27%. Stephen A. Smith in 2028, coming in at 36%.

• 27:48Speaker 02

  It's an article out this morning from where Joe Biden's first chief of staff, Ron Klain is quoted, where he gives some backstory and the debate prep for the, you know, debates that, that ruined America. And he gives some anecdotes about how Joe Biden left debate prep to go to the pool and fell asleep and how he couldn't remember things and how he, he was focused mostly on how he didn't think that why people weren't happier, that, that leaders of Germany and France thought that he was doing a good job, why that wasn't resonating more. So I don't know. I mean, I'm kind of surprised that Joe Biden got 27% there, I guess. I, I would say that's maybe a, not a great sign for Stephen A. Smith's potential campaign that he's only coming in at nine points ahead of.

• 28:34Pablo Torre?

  The guy who went to the pool before the debate.

• 28:37Speaker 02

  Again, I'm with Tim on this.

• 28:41Pablo Torre?

  Chart number three, narrowing the poll now to 654 likely Democratic primary voters. Margin of error now up to 4%. If the 2028 Democratic primary were held today, who would you vote for? Kamala Harris coming in at 45%, Stephen A. Smith coming in at 24%. Other 17%, Wouldn't Vote 6%, Not Sure 9%. And so this is a head-to-head matchup between Kamala Harris.

• 29:08Speaker 02

  Why, how would you answer that question as a recipient of this poll? You get a phone call, somebody on the other line, Rasmussen. Wyatt Smack. Who would you vote for, Kamala Harris or Stephen A. Smith? What would you have said? If it's just those two, I would have said Kamala Harris. But I feel like the other thing that feels mushy here is Not Sure is 9%, Other is 17%. Not Sure and Other are basically the same thing. So let's just call that [bleep] 26%. So it's Kamala 45, Other 26%, Stephen 24%. Because we don't know who Other is. Other could be anybody. It could be [bleep] Pikachu.

• 29:56Speaker 02

  So this again feels flawed to me. He's coming in third behind, who?

• 30:02Pablo Torre?

  Chart number four. Another head-to-head of the primary. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez 32%, Stephen A. Smith 28%, Other 18%, Wouldn't Vote 7%, Not Sure 15%.

• 30:18Speaker 02

  The Other Not Sure collective 33%. So let's just call it what it is. He's still coming in third. A little discouraging for AOC.

• 30:28Pablo Torre?

  That, that, that, this is where in the cross tabs, I was like. Okay, this is getting a little dark.

• 30:36Speaker 02

  But that also doesn't surprise me where I think AOC would be a good candidate. I feel like if you're talking about the people who are involved in this poll, I would imagine there are probably a number of more centrist Democrats who also view AOC in the same way that I feel like probably many centrist Republicans and then far-right Republicans see her as being too left of their ideals and, and policies. And so I could see where she would come in at a lower number, just, just solely based on their perception of her without her actually being able to go and lay out what her campaign would look like and what her goals would be.

• 31:21Pablo Torre?

  But AOC, just in the cross tabs of this, did have a net favorable rating from the people polled. So not simply people who are predisposed to not like the left, but moderates who actually did see value in her, although in this case, 32 to 28 is right at the margin of error of 4%, which again is where my brain was like, okay, well, what about, to Wyatt's point though, about a more, let's say deliberately moderate-positioned candidate, like Gavin Newsom. Chart five, head-to-head Gavin Newsom, 31%, Stephen A., 28%.

• 32:04Speaker 02

  This is bad news for Gavin Newsom, I think, if you're looking at this. I mean, he's, him and Stephen are competitors across multiple vectors now. They're both podcast hosts.

• 32:11Pablo Torre?

  Yes.

• 32:12Speaker 02

  They are both potential presidential candidates. And you would think that Gavin would have a little bit more space between him and, and Stephen A., you know, in this situation. Governor of California, has some experience. People are basically like, meh, either, either seem fine. So I, I don't know if that's good for Stephen A., or it seems like it's not great for Gavin. I think, still though, great for Other Not Sure, who's, yeah, coming in at 35%.

• 32:43Pablo Torre?

  Chart number six, though, this is, I think, something like a bigger reveal. This is a head-to-head matchup for the White House, okay? 2028 presidential election in a legit political poll, the Rasmussen Reports. Pablo Torre finds out survey, more than 1,000 likely American voters with a margin of error of 3%. If the 2028 presidential election were held today, who would you vote for? J.D. Vance, 38%. Stephen A. Smith, 34%. And as a person who worked in politics, Tim, this result indicates what to you?

• 33:21Speaker 02

  Well, it indicates that there is about a third of the country that would literally respond in favor of anybody over J.D. Vance, formerly J.D. Hamill, formerly J.D. Bowman.

• 33:34Pablo Torre?

  He did have a lot of separate names.

• 33:36Speaker 02

  He's changed his name several times, which I think is a sign of sociopathic.

• 33:40Pablo Torre?

  Stephen A. Smith?

• 33:40Speaker 02

  Was it Czech cashing?

• 33:41Pablo Torre?

  Unlike him.

• 33:42Speaker 02

  I don't think it was related to Czech cashing. Has Stephen A. Smith had multiple names? Or is his birth name Stephen A. Smith?

• 33:47Pablo Torre?

  I believe he has been Stephen A. Smith for decades now.

• 33:50Speaker 02

  I think this stands out a little bit less as encouraging for Stephen A. Smith and more as discouraging for Vance. I mean, Trump just got 49%, right? So he's 11% below that.

• 34:03Pablo Torre?

  Right.

• 34:03Speaker 02

  And I think that leads us to, you know, something that is pretty obvious, which is that, you know, he has less appeal than Donald Trump to certain groups of people. People aren't that excited by a potato face with a beard. Mm-mm. Like, if you just put a beard on a potato, that's J.D. Vance.

• 34:22Pablo Torre?

  But what if that potato also loved to post?

• 34:27Speaker 02

  Really loved to post.

• 34:29Pablo Torre?

  It's like arguing with people on text all the time.

• 34:32Speaker 02

  Do you have any mixed feelings about J.D. Vance over that? Because I gotta tell you, I really dislike him at a deep level, like in my core. I find him to be probably the most unappealing person in all of public life. But he's a poster. And as a poster, I do feel like I have some kinship with him that I'm grappling with.

• 34:51Pablo Torre?

  It is disturbing to be on and constantly refreshing the platform that J.D. Vance, in a somewhere out there sort of scenario, was also scrolling and refreshing at the same exact time.

• 35:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:03Pablo Torre?

  That's worrisome to me. But I think the takeaway point is, what if it was Trump without any of the charisma? And also, he wasn't funny. And also, he wasn't even vaguely entertaining.

• 35:20Pablo Torre?

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• 36:05Pablo Torre?

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• 36:50Pablo Torre?

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• 37:23Pablo Torre?

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• 38:07Pablo Torre?

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• 38:41Pablo Torre?

  I think truly, like, part of the appeal of Stephen A., just to now get into why some might be at all energized. I think there is the part of it that is, like, we are on a desert island, like in a cartoon, and you see something and you're like, "That's a steak." And it's not a steak, it's a coconut, but you're so hungry that you're like, "That looks like the greatest meal I've ever had." And there is just like that dysmorphia around who and what Stephen A. is, actually. And then there's the added desperation and hunger for someone to just get into a debate.

• 39:13Speaker 02

  To own these guys.

• 39:14Pablo Torre?

  And [bleep] and just go after them in the way that we impotently watched the guy who went to the pool.

• 39:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, passed out.

• 39:23Pablo Torre?

  Go to bed instead of getting in the ring.

• 39:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:26Pablo Torre?

  And I think we just want a champion who will go into a televised debate and take some big swings.

• 39:34Speaker 02

  I agree with this, and this was where I disagreed with your earlier statement. We kind of got distracted, but you said something like... You know, like, the only thing he can do is talk, or that like, that there's, that getting ready for the presidency is just figuring out how to talk, and it's more than that. Are we sure? Maybe that's not true, actually. Maybe ability to post and talk and to own J.D. Vance to his potato beard face is really all we're looking for right now. But is that truly satisfying? I feel like, would that truly be satisfying? Because I just think about, there were moments where, like, I remember during the Obama

• 40:16Speaker 02

  administration where Obama went to the House, and, do you remember this? Yeah, sure. And he just kind of was like, "I'll take all your questions." And it was this thing where, like, people just threw questions at him, and at that time, people were like, "Nobody's ever done this before." Like, he just went, and he was like, there and he was on top of it, and he got his points in, he got in some zingers, and it was like, "All right, great." And he did that, and a week later, nobody cared. And it just felt like, oh, that was oxygen for just a brief little moment. Is that what we want? What we want versus what we deserve, I think, is our two different questions.

• 40:59Pablo Torre?

  To quote Batman, I believe. A hero we, we might need.

• 41:05Speaker 02

  But like, is it more than talking? I mean, obviously, the presidency is more than talking, but the better, the more appealing talker, maybe not the better talker, has like, basically won every time, except for the COVID election recently. Obama was a very good talker. Sure. The Democrats have put up the last three times. Kamala Harris, who had some skills talking, but also some demerits and deficits. She wasn't, she was not particularly strong, speaking off the cuff. But could she have gotten better, like? Had she had more time? Yeah. Maybe. Because I also feel like that's the one weird thing, that when we're looking at this, we're looking at it with an asterisk of, okay, yeah, you ran a shortened campaign, and still, like, it was close in the popular vote. For sure.

• 41:50Speaker 02

  Joe Biden couldn't talk at all. Like, literally couldn't speak. So that wasn't great. Hillary, not exactly a dynamic talker, really.

• 41:59Speaker 02

  Put it back to my people Jeb, and I love Jeb, like personally.

• 42:03Pablo Torre?

  You put the exclamation point.

• 42:04Speaker 02

  I did, I didn't actually, but you know, I emotionally put it in there. Howard Dean did it. Jeb! But like, he was a terrible talker. And, and you know, I do think we convince ourselves because there's this thing that like, we want to believe it's about more than that. You know, we want to think, we want to, you know, pull people's higher age. Think about, think of as better angels and like, think about all of the serious problems that the country faces and though, we need a person of depth. And it's kind of like, I don't think the people really want a person of depth unless they're a good talker. Like maybe we just need to accept that talking is a pretty key part of the job and that the Democrats should probably orient themselves to finding somebody who's really, really good at talking.

• 42:47Speaker 02

  And then all the other skills are kind of secondary. Yeah, I mean, I will, I will see that, that yes, there is an element of it that feels like as president, you are America's spokesmodel. Right. And, and so with that in mind. America's next top spokesmodel? Yeah, you like, you are, you are Vanawite just turning the letters on democracy. And with that in mind though, I think that's also, there is that part of it that is both domestically and internationally. Could Stephen A. Smith actually like, would he just be seen as a joke to everyone outside of the US when he has to go overseas

• 43:32Speaker 02

  and actually interact with foreign chancellors and other foreign presidents? Are they just going to be like? We have a weekend Fox host running the military right now. Yeah, and I don't think anybody takes that guy seriously. I know, but it seems like Stephen A. would be an upgrade. I don't know. But he's not the best. I bet Metta Fredriksson of Denmark would be thrilled to see Stephen A. Smith right now.

• 43:53Pablo Torre?

  I, I do just want to express as somebody who has worked with Stephen A. Smith and has been in sports for a very long time. It is insane how plausible all of this conversation is. It is very disturbing to me truly that the people of our country, Wyatt, might want to just buy a vowel and the vowel is A.

• 44:17Pablo Torre?

  Stephen A. winning by 28% in this head-to-head matchup with J.D. Vance, among black voters, winning by 12% among moderates, losing by only 2% among independents. And I'll just speed through chart number seven, which is that if Stephen A. were to run as an independent in a three-way matchup, now we're looking at a bit of a problem for Mr. A. Smith. J.D. Vance, Republican, 40%. Kamala Harris, Democrat, 37%. Stephen A. Smith, independent, 11%. And the head pollster at Rasmussen, Mark Mitchell, tells us that, quote, "He's not a spoiler," is what we're learning from these numbers. He was taking equally from both J.D. Vance and Kamala Harris. Again, speaking to the more moderate, centrist-style candidate.

• 44:58Speaker 02

  I would look at this as really bad news for Kamala, actually, because you notice J.D. Vance's number went up when we added Kamala to the picture. So people, when it was just J.D. versus Stephen A., people were like, "I'd like to learn a little bit more." But then when there were 2% of the people that were like, "Once Kamala is even a possibility," they're like, "No, [bleep] J.D. Vance, potato beard." So here's my question. I feel like his name comes up and these other names come up because there is this conversation of like, "The Democratic Party is in turmoil. What is the direction of the party?" But I'm curious, when has there ever been a clear direction of the party? Like, when has it ever been strong? Because I don't feel

• 45:40Speaker 02

  like it really has. Like, when you look back in history, it's like, okay, even when Obama was running, Obama, like, it wasn't like Obama was saying things that other candidates weren't saying. It's, to your point, he was saying them better. Like, at that time, he wasn't running on same-sex marriage. Like, same-sex marriage happened much later, but prior to that, he was very much openly against same-sex marriage just to woo voters. And whether he believed that in his real life or not, he was just very charmingly

• 46:20Speaker 02

  playing it down the middle as closely as possible. And to me, that raises a question of... Both parties seem to always be playing it as safely down the middle as they can until Trump to just kind of like win over some very specific demographic and I think you're unintentionally making the case for Stephen A. Smith right now. You're coming, you're coming around.

• 46:49Pablo Torre?

  I was gonna say, are we writing all this down?

• 46:52Speaker 02

  I think you're kind of unintentionally making the case, what? Because I agree, like, the policy part of this is, you know, you can kind of co-opt a bunch of things that are already out there. What people don't like about the Democratic Party right now is it feels leaderless and listless and it doesn't feel like there's a fight. It's not really, like, there are a couple of specific policies, like, people were pretty unhappy with crime rising during COVID, but that's coming down anyway right now, right? Like, there are a couple of policy things, but a lot of it is vibes. And if you look at the Democrats who've had the most success, they haven't come out of sports journalism. But in your history, Kennedy, Clinton, Obama, they all did, they all did kind of break the mold from before and they were very charismatic.

• 47:36Speaker 02

  And this was, and all of those were kind of in a before internet time, right? So, you know, I think that the traits that were required then are even required like on steroids now.

• 47:46Pablo Torre?

  Sure.

• 47:46Speaker 02

  And so, I don't, again, like Stephen A. Smith, I don't know, we're about to get into the other kinds of names that they throw out there, but to me, it's like, is there a way that the Democrats could, could put a front man up there? That like, really doesn't change a whole lot, but makes people feel like a lot has changed. It's like, oh, man, he's fresh. But she's new, they're fresh. They don't have the baggage of Hillary and Biden.

• 48:09Pablo Torre?

  I mean, why? To your point, he's, Stephen A. is not actually even a Democrat. Like, he would be wearing sort of like the label, which would be a fundamental change in the product because discernibly, Stephen A. is the guy who goes on like Hannity's show and talks. He's the guy who's friends with Bill O'Reilly. He's the guy on First Take arguing with LeBron James.

• 48:28Speaker 02

  Right.

• 48:28Pablo Torre?

  He's not actually a Democrat in really any discernible political way, even if the Venn diagram might have him, again, as this centrist with some overlap of both parties.

• 48:38Speaker 02

  That's a weakness. Well, and I guess, I guess for me, the question is, how much is this a Democratic candidate? And how much is this focusing energy in different ways? Because again, thinking about like, any of those moments in history where

• 48:59Speaker 02

  We have seen like great change within civil rights, whether that was in the 60s, whether that was same-sex marriage. Those things weren't coming internally from the White House. Those were external pressures from organizers, from like state legislation, from judges, from things like that, that were pushing those things forward. And then they eventually would get to a president's desk, but it wasn't a thing that like some president was leading the charge on these things. And so I just wonder on some level, how much of this is, you know, that energy that we're looking for the party? Is it something that we're looking from a candidate? Or is it more, when you think about those moments in time,

• 49:43Speaker 02

  those movements were people outside of direct politics who were trying to push for change and were able to mobilize people not only in, you know, raising awareness, but mobilizing people to then get out and become a voting bloc that then those politicians had to actually respond to? So I think here's the fundamental disconnect with what you're arguing. Okay. That you are looking for earnest, genuine change in reform in the country. And what this exercise is- You idiot. Is trying to figure out who can be a vessel for that change by flapping their jaws successfully enough

• 50:27Speaker 02

  to put J.D. Vance like back in that [bleep] girl's bathroom where he hung out in high school with no friends. All right, like that's what the people are looking for. Somebody to put J.D. in a corner. And then after that, once you've found that person, then maybe the goody-two-shoes people like you and like activists out there in the world could like kind of provide them some sort of positive, you know, positive vision to execute upon. I just wonder if that's even- When you're talking about somebody like Stephen A. Smith and you're and the metric now is comparing somebody to Trump, like. Yeah. Then it's, who's to say that like, a Stephen A. Smith is going to then want to do those things?

• 51:10Pablo Torre?

  I mean, I just gotta remind us all that we're talking about Stephen A. Smith.

• 51:14Speaker 02

  I don't know, how did I end up on the pro Stephen A. Smith side of this thing? Call me SAS.

• 51:19Pablo Torre?

  It's, it's, I will end this segment by pointing out that according to the pollster, uh, who worked with us on these, on these cross tabs on this data, he looked at the top line numbers and said, quote, "Based on what I see in these numbers, he should run." End quote.

• 51:35Speaker 02

  The one thing that is missing from the Stephen A., he is trying to do this like, I'm a common sense independent guy. And like, he's not like doing that, I'm really gonna take the fight to the bad guys. Like, if Stephen A. wanted to do this, like, we need first take Stephen A. owning JD the way he owns Skip, you know, like, and that's not what he's giving us.

• 51:55Pablo Torre?

  No, he is, he is actively trying to be the guy who is the reasonable person and is actually not political.

• 52:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:03Pablo Torre?

  Like, he's sort of angling for that lane, right down the middle, is what I can tell.

• 52:08Speaker 02

  Your boy Kang wrote about this.

• 52:10Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, Jay Caspian Kang was the person, by the way, that Wyatt should really be mad at.

• 52:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. I am mad at Jay. He put this in the New Yorker. But I also know this is what Jay does. Jay just loves to [bleep] drop cherry bombs in the toilet. But.

• 52:22Pablo Torre?

  For the New Yorker, yes.

• 52:23Speaker 02

  I wrote down what he wrote, because I thought it was really smart. He, he was like, he thinks the Democrats need a hostile takeover and new candidates who stand far outside the establishment's tepid choices. The policy positions of these candidates, I believe, do not matter, as long as they're within reason. Which means that everything from full bore leftist economic populism to staunch performative centrism is on the table as long as they fight the Trump [bleep]. Like, that's his point. That is what the people are demanding out there. Somebody who is not tepid and limp and has been in Washington forever.

• 53:00Pablo Torre?

  People are tired of being dunked on 50 times in a row and are like, can we get someone else to do that to them?

• 53:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, so Jay's point is like, so give me an AOC, they'll take him down. Give me somebody that's in the middle that'll take him down. Like, what we need is somebody that can actually compete against them and out-meme them and own them. And that might say something really horrible about our society.

• 53:21Pablo Torre?

  It does, to be clear.

• 53:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, sure, but I do think that it is channeling a real feeling out there, particularly among Democratic voters.

• 53:29Pablo Torre?

  No question to me that feeling is.

• 53:30Speaker 02

  It's like not very ideological at all.

• 53:32Pablo Torre?

  It's real.

• 53:32Speaker 02

  And so this is, I think, Stephen's biggest failure, which is like, if he's gonna do this, he's gotta be first-take guy. Just looking at demographically how people voted. When you look at it by race, overwhelmingly, non-white people vote for Democratic ideas and Democratic policies. White people vote overwhelmingly for Republican ideas and Republican policies. And if you look at all the last elections, and I think it's like the last 30 years of elections, it breaks down where if the Republican candidate gets 55% of the white vote, they lose. If they get 56, they win.

• 54:13Speaker 02

  If the Democratic candidate gets 43% of the white vote, they win, 42, they lose. And that's how it's broken down in the last five elections, I believe. McCain got 55%, Obama got 43%. Biden, when he won, got 43%. Trump got 55%. This last time, Trump got 56%. Kamala Harris got 42%. And to me, it feels like that is the thing to look at, is like, what is it about that 1% that it seems like both parties just seem to be playing for that 1%? And when I hear people talk about their sort of disappointment and disillusionment with the Democratic Party,

• 54:57Speaker 02

  it might be in part because it feels as though Democratic Party has just sort of assumed that.

• 55:05Speaker 02

  Every other race is going to overwhelmingly vote for democratic ideas and democratic policies. And they have just chosen to get into this battle for this 1%. Is it a thing where then you can bring in a Stephen A. Smith? And it's like, okay, all of a sudden, yeah. Now you're gonna have to like, can you both figure out what this 1% that these two parties have decided that they're gonna fight over? Are you the person who's gonna be able to argue that? And are you the person who's going to be able to instill confidence in all of the other voters that have, that are going to be okay with the fact that in this public thing, you are not addressing their concerns while you continue to have this fight for this 1%?

• 55:50Speaker 02

  I don't know what the First Take demo is, but maybe.

• 55:52Pablo Torre?

  Yeah. I mean, what I can tell you, though, is that if there is a bit of a compromise solution for the exploratory committee to consider. It'd be, okay, what if we get a real democratic candidate, top of the ticket? And what if Stephen A. Smith did the thing that he has loathed to do in any sector of his life? And be the vice president? Be the secondary figure? And so we did ask our sample of over 1,000 likely American voters, who would be the best 2028 democratic candidate for vice president? And the results were, as Wyatt is already having his head in his hands. Mark Cuban, 14%.

• 56:36Speaker 02

  No.

• 56:37Pablo Torre?

  Stephen A. Smith, 12%.

• 56:38Speaker 02

  No.

• 56:39Pablo Torre?

  Dwayne Johnson, 12%.

• 56:41Speaker 02

  No.

• 56:42Pablo Torre?

  Matthew McConaughey, 10%.

• 56:44Speaker 02

  All right. No.

• 56:46Pablo Torre?

  Jon Stewart, 9%. Oprah Winfrey, 7%. Pablo Torre, 1%.

• 56:55Speaker 02

  No.

• 56:56Pablo Torre?

  Not sure, 35%.

• 56:58Speaker 02

  Yes. Oh, God, Mark Cuban, yeah.

• 57:01Pablo Torre?

  By the way.

• 57:02Speaker 02

  He did such a great job with the Mavericks.

• 57:04Pablo Torre?

  Uh, we should say that when we reached out.

• 57:06Speaker 02

  Wasn't Nico, wasn't one of the ideas?

• 57:07Pablo Torre?

  Well, he did hire Nico Harrison. I do wanna say.

• 57:10Speaker 02

  Also, there was all that sexual harassment stuff.

• 57:12Pablo Torre?

  Well, we did reach out to Mark Cuban for comment on the fact that he polled at 14% and Stephen A. Smith polled at 12%. And he wrote back in an email, as this is wont, quote, "I need to reconsider my life if I only beat Stephen A. by 2%."

• 57:27Speaker 02

  No, you don't, Mark Cuban. You don't. Stay the [__] out of politics.

• 57:47Pablo Torre?

  At the end of every episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out, a show about finding stuff out and also torturing Wyatt Snack and making him question his friendship with me. What did we find out today, guys?

• 57:57Speaker 02

  I found out that Stephen A. Smith is a viable minor candidate for the Democratic nominee in 2028, but maybe not as viable as he thinks. And I found out that LeBron James was right in his argument with Stephen A. Smith about whether he should be talking about his son, because you shouldn't be talking about somebody's son. And I found out LeBron James might not have been right about his presence at Kobe Bryant's funeral.

• 58:23Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, yeah. Wyatt, what did you find out today?

• 58:32Speaker 02

  I found out there's not enough Remy Martin to have done this podcast today. I'm taking both those bottles and whatever else you got, but that's still not going to be enough. You're both delightful people.

• 58:51Pablo Torre?

  What I really found out today is that Wyatt Snack is the new campaign manager for Other Not Sure.

• 58:56Speaker 02

  Other Not Sure 2028. Put it on a T-shirt.

• 59:00Pablo Torre?

  Thank you both for doing this.

• 59:13Pablo Torre?

  Pablo Torre Finds Out is produced by Walter Avaroma, Ryan Cortez, Sam Daywig, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, Neely Lohman, Rob McCray, Rachel Miller Howard, Carl Scott, Matt Sullivan, Claire Taylor, Chris Tumanello, and Juliet Warren. Our studio engineering by RG Systems. Our sound design by NGW Post. Our theme song, as always, is by John Bravo. And we will talk to you next time.

• 59:54Speaker 04

  With a Discover Cash Back Card, it's payback time when you earn cash back on everyday purchases. Activate and earn 5% cash back at different categories each quarter on up to $1,500 in purchases. That's 5% cash back at different places each quarter, like grocery stores, on gas, and at restaurants. It pays to discover. Terms apply. See discover.com/five for details. At Humana, our Medicare Advantage plans are easy to understand and easy on your wallet. Like offering more benefits than you'd get from original Medicare alone, and including dental, vision, and hearing coverage in every plan. And the best part is, every plan has a $0 or low monthly plan premium, which makes it easier to save, too. So this Medicare planning season, plan well with Humana.

• 1:00:39Speaker 04

  Learn more at gethumana.com. Humana is a Medicare Advantage HMO and PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.