Stephen A. Smith distances himself from Jimmy Kimmel after Kimmel cries over Trump win: ‘Wouldn’t have been me’

ESPN host Stephen A. Smith addressed the recent controversial monologue by late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, who cried on stage Wednesday night over Trump’s election victory. Kimmel said the election results would be bad for people who voted against Trump, but also bad for people who voted for Trump, “but they just don’t know it yet.”

Smith, who is under the same corporate umbrella as Kimmel of The Walt Disney Corporation, clarified that Kimmel’s reaction does not reflect his own.

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ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith told the co-hosts of “The View” that he saw Donald Trump’s victory coming “a mile away.” (Screenshot/ABC)

“It wouldn’t have been me,” Smith said when asked about it during an appearance on “The Will Cain Show” Thursday. “It wouldn’t be a postmortem, it certainly wouldn’t have been me crying. I’m not crying because Donald Trump is president.”

Smith went on to spell out a stark contrast between his own reaction to the news and Kimmel’s. Smith praised Trump’s previous handling of the economy in his first term, before COVID-19.

“The American people have spoken. You can say what you want, but this country has said we went too far to the left. Enough is enough. We have to stop this nonsense. This is about our pocketbooks and this is about security. Period. And if you don’t like it, get over it,” Smith said. “The bottom line is that the economy was doing well before COVID.”

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Talk show host Jimmy Kimmel cried on stage over Trump’s victory. (ABC | Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Smith even suggested that the scale of Trump’s victory and the margin by which he won is a good thing for the country. Trump won the popular vote and at least five of the seven key swing states as vote counts progress in Arizona and Nevada.

“But at the end of the day, it’s always good when the American people rise up, they’re as united as they came across in this past election… It’s the American people speaking out ‘We don’t like what we’ve got , we want this.” And when you have it, listen,” Smith said. “He didn’t win, he destroyed her. I mean, this was a riot.”

Smith said that if he were in Kimmel’s position, he would have simply tried to make the audience laugh, as a talk show host is often expected to do.

“So for me, I would have tried, because of course it’s late at night, I would have tried to be a little fun and humorous about it and let everybody know that it’s not all gloom and doom. We’ve dealt with a lot in our community and we’re going to be dealing with a lot more in the years to come, long after Donald Trump is gone, regardless of what you think.”

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Cardinal Timothy Dolan, former President Trump and former first lady Melania Trump attend the annual Alfred E. Smith Foundation Dinner in New York City on October 17, 2024. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

Smith previously railed against Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama for “alienating” voters ahead of Tuesday’s election during his own monologue on “The Stephen A. Smith Show.”

Smith also claims he didn’t vote for Trump.

Meanwhile, Kimmel is one of the few mainstream entertainment figures to convey hysteria in the wake of Trump’s resounding victory. He joins female hip-hop artist Cardi-B, actress Jamie Lee Curtis, singer Billie Eilish and Whoopi Goldberg.

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