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Stephen A. Smith scolded President Biden for recently sharing a fried chicken dinner with a Black family, saying it wasn't "the greatest look" and admitting former President Trump would have been deemed racist for doing the same thing.
Earlier this month, President Biden joined a Black family in North Carolina at their home to eat with a man named Eric and his two sons. In a YouTube video posted by the president’s campaign, they picked up food from Cook Out, a popular chain known for burgers, BBQ and chicken. Biden told the kids he got them chicken fingers, and said he ordered a hamburger for himself, but the optics of fried chicken on the table irked the ESPN host.
"First of all, we all know about racial tropes, do we not? Racist tropes. You ever heard of that? Where people sit up there and try to use things to intimate something else of a racially insensitive nature. So Black folks with the president and fried chicken ain’t the greatest look," Smith said Wednesday on "The Stephen A. Smith Show."
Stephen A. Smith scolded President Biden for sharing a fried chicken dinner with a Black family, noting that it wasn’t "the greatest look." (Cindy Ord/Getty Images for SiriusXM)
While ESPN has made attempts to stay away from politics, the network allows Smith to discuss anything he wants on his, and he used the platform to also criticize Biden’s decision to eat unhealthy foods.
"What the hell are you doing eating fried chicken? You’re 81," Smith said.
"What 81-year-old you know is munching on fried chicken? You ain’t been in the greatest health in a lot of people’s eyes, you know, so eating some fried chicken ain’t the greatest look," he continued, before making a third point.
President Biden joined a Black family in North Carolina at their home to eat Cook Out earlier this month. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
"That is the kind of scene, that is the kind of imagery you and your team decided to provide? Really? Really? Sitting down eating fried chicken, come on man," Smith said. "This is the same dude who was a senator in the [19]90s pushing the crime bill. You know, that crime bill that led to mass incarceration for an inordinate amount of Black folks."
Smith added Trump would be criticized as racist if he recorded a similar video and posted it online.
Stephen A. Smith did not appreciate President Biden sitting down for a fried chicken dinner with a Black family in North Carolina. (iStock)
"If we’re being fair, if we saw Donald Trump sitting down in a Black household, eating fried chicken with a father and a son, what would we say? You know folks out there would be calling it racist," Smith said. "Well, if it’s racist for him, and I’m not saying it would be, but if it’s racist for him, why wouldn’t it be racist for Biden?"
Smith then made it clear he was not calling Biden racist, but simply making a point.
"You’ve given people that ammunition," he said.
The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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