President Donald Trump fired back at Stephen A. Smith on Monday night after the commentator criticized him for showing up to the New York Knicks' Game 3 at Madison Square Garden and said he would blame Trump if the team lost.
Asked about Smith before boarding Air Force One to head back to Washington, Trump called him a nice guy but said running for president required “a certain aptitude.” “You need a high IQ,” Trump said. “I’m not sure that Stephen has that,” he added. “I don’t think he does, actually.”
Smith had gone on the attack before the game, saying Trump had “no business” being in New York City for it and insisting he would hold the president responsible if the Knicks lost. He also said he would feel the same way if Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan attended, framing the objection as a matter of timing and presence rather than politics.
The exchange landed after a night that gave the president an unusually visible sports-stage moment. Trump attended Game 3 on Monday night, and the Spurs beat the Knicks 115-111 to cut New York’s series lead to 2-1. His appearance was notable on its own, making him the first sitting U.S. president to attend an NBA Finals game, but the sharper story was how quickly it turned into a public sparring match with Smith.
That fight also brushed up against a longer-running political tease. Smith has spent more than a year openly flirting with a potential 2028 presidential run, saying he has “no choice” but to consider it and that people tied to politics keep telling him he could win. Trump’s jab at his aptitude and IQ brought that talk into the open again, even as Smith tried to cast his criticism of the president’s courtside appearance as something other than politics.
For now, the unresolved part is not whether the two can keep trading shots. It is whether Smith will turn his presidential flirtation into something more than late-night speculation after a Knicks loss and a presidential visit made the exchange impossible to miss.
