Sports pundit Stephen A. Smith has fired back at Donald Trump after the president called him a “low IQ individual.” On June 14, Smith reportedly challenged the politician to a live televised debate to settle the question once and for all.
Stephen A. Smith comments on Donald Trump’s IQ
Speaking on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, host Kasie Hunt asked Stephen A. Smith whether Donald Trump appeared “sharp enough” to carry out his duties. Smith stated, “Well, I don’t know anybody that would associate the word ‘sharp’ with him, because he doesn’t seem that sharp with some of the decisions that he makes sometimes, to be quite honest with you.” The ESPN analyst added that he had no desire to “denigrate” or “insult” the president, and would not baselessly “question his intellect.”
However, since Trump himself raised the subject of IQ, Smith proposed a straightforward resolution: sit across from each other on live television. “When he wants to sit up there and question my IQ and talk to me about people that would smoke me in a debate, well, why don’t you do it yourself? Why defer to anybody else?”
Smith said. “Because I’d be more than happy to sit across from the president and debate some of the decisions that he’s made.” He also shut down any suggestions that he harbours political ambitions. “I’m not interested in running or anything like that. I like my job. I like my money,” the sports analyst stated.
He closed with a direct challenge to the president: “I would certainly say that if you really, really want to be serious about questioning somebody’s IQ, put me at the same table as you and we can have a discussion in front of the masses about some of the decisions that you’ve made on behalf—supposedly—of the American people. And we’ll see where my IQ lands then.”
Trump has recently claimed he scored a perfect 30 out of 30 on a cognitive test, often citing the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA). Medical professionals, however, note that the MoCA screens for signs of cognitive decline or dementia. It is not a measure of intelligence, and a perfect score does not indicate exceptional intellect, contrary to what Trump has suggested.
Originally reported by Devanshi Basu on Mandatory.
