California experience before the fire — this is before the fire — if he tells you that looking at California made him think that the Democrats were not the ones to back, just think about the fact that he could see it before the fire and he was affected by it. I don't think it changed his vote, but now it might.

And he said about California, you see what's going on in California: higher taxes, homelessness, crime rate, etc. When people are going off, particularly folks on the left, and they're talking about these policies and what policy is better, blah blah blah, I see folks on the right talking about real life issues and stuff like that. And he says, I'm like, I hate that they make a lot of sense.

Now does that sound like exactly something that came out of my mouth? It does. It sounds like exactly something I would say. The Democrats have lots of lofty conceptual ideas and they're going to call you names if you don't like it. Republicans have been really clean about talking about what's wrong and how to fix it. The border open, too many criminals, close it. Everybody understands that. Everybody understands that.

And here again I'm going to credit Trump for something that's not obvious to you. When Trump says what he wants, everybody understands it. And then he says it a bunch of times until we all get it. And then we can like it or not like it, but it's a real proposed solution and we can evaluate it and we all understand it. That's sort of new. Because my memory of past traditional boring politicians is that they would say general hypothetical philosophical things too, and you could barely remember which one was backing what policy. But now it's such a clean distinction. One says do obvious common sense things. The other says well the 1% not paying their fair share, you got my DEI, and what about the lesbian purposes? You know, now you can mock that even if you're a Democrat. So even Democrats can mock that now. Bill Maher of course was a pioneer mocking it.

But here's the kill shot. Ah man, just listen to this. This is Stephen A. Smith again. Now if you're not familiar with all the famous names in sports you have to know that these Black athletes have been Democrat, right? Those are important to the story. So he says, I saw folks on the left basically try to guilt me into voting for Kamala. You know what bothered me? I might have ended up voting for Kamala because I didn't like how Trump acts.

You know that is such — every time somebody says I don't like how he acts, that's just not a thing. That's not a real thing. You could say I don't like his policies. You could say I didn't like what he did in his first term. But I don't like how he acts? Really? That would be the reason you pick the other person? Let me tell you how he acts. He acts in a way that with no experience whatsoever he became president of the United States once, and then being completely destroyed by lawfare and fake news and the Democrat evil committee, he rebuilt from absolute destruction in four years to come back and win the presidency in a convincing way. Now that's the way he acts.

Do you think it's accidental that his provocative ways happened at the same time as his great success? If you still haven't figured out that all that stuff of the way he acts, that's the active ingredient. I think all the Democrats are so — maybe what would be the word? I don't want to insult them. I'll say they're not seeing the right frame. If you think that Trump has a few good ideas even in your own opinion but that is ruined by the way he acts and his insults and his crazy statements, what would be the evidence that all those insults and crazy statements were negative? Was it that he didn't become president twice? Is it that he doesn't have the biggest mandate ever? Is it that every politician who is worth a damn is looking at what he did and trying to copy it? Is it that Fetterman, a Democrat who I have a lot of respect for I have to be honest, is it that he's looked at Trump and said, hmm that looks like it works, why don't I do some of that? And then he does it and guess what? It works. It works for Fetterman. It works for everybody.

How about we can we finally get to the point where we realize that the way he acts is the active ingredient? I mean he has to have good policies that are common sense of course, but selling it, selling the policies, which is absolutely essential to a good leader, he can't have good ideas and not sell them. Selling them comes from the way he acts. If you don't get that, everything's confusing. I've been saying this since 2015 and I don't think I've ever been more right about anything in my life. I'm about as right as you could be that it's the way he acts that's the secret sauce.

All right, so but going on, here's what he said. He said but what I didn't do was call Trump a racist. I didn't call him a name. And then just listen to this. I knew Trump before he ran for president. There it is. There it is. Do you know how many Black Americans knew Trump, were close to him? He helped in a number of cases. You know he helped Michael Jackson. He helped Mike Tyson. I'm pretty sure he helped who was the boxing promoter with the wild hair? I forget. I mean why I know — I'm not even — I'm just a casual observer and I know at least three examples where he with nothing in return — well there's always something in return I guess, but just as helpful to everybody.

Well so he goes on talking about Trump. So this is Stephen A. Smith talking about Trump. He said we talked on the phone. We talk at basketball games or boxing events. I knew this man. And so some of the things that were being said about him I knew were not true. And I was saying come on y'all you got to do better than that. Don King, thank you. Yeah he was friendly with Don King. I think helped him in his career as well.

So you know what would have been really useful if Stephen A. Smith had said this before it was safe? Would you agree? Wouldn't it have been nice for Stephen A. Smith when Trump was being called favoring neo-Nazis and the fine people hoax and he's the biggest racist? Wouldn't it be nice for a respected smart voice to say oh I know him personally, yeah you don't have to worry about that, that's not an issue. Wouldn't that be nice?

But I found myself getting ready to respond to a post on that and say basically thanks for nothing. Thanks for nothing. This would have been really useful in 2015. It would have been really useful in 2020. It would have been really useful in the beginning of 2024. Do you know what it is now? Now it's unnecessary. It's unnecessary. He won. So now that it's safe, Elon Musk can say it and Joe Rogan can say it and you know a whole bunch of public figures can say it. The left and the right can say it now. It's safe.

So I found myself getting actually angry at him for sort of speaking out too late. Like that counts. And then I slap myself in the face. Stop it. Stop it. I'm ignoring my own rule. You know what rule I'm ignoring of my own? Here's the rule: everything good takes too long to happen. Everything good takes too long to happen. This is good. This is good. Took too long to happen. And now I reject all my prior comments. So I'm taking them back, which I knew I would do. So I'm taking back my comments that he waited too long and that it wasn't brave to wait till now and he's waiting till it's safe. And I'm going to completely revise that. I respect his opinion and I really appreciate it. I respect it and I really genuinely appreciate it.

And if you hear me ever again say that something is good but it took too long, can you slap me? I don't want to ever hear that out of anybody's mouth because everything good took too long. There's no exception to that. Everything. So it's just the dumbest, simplest pund thing to say oh where were you before? Why didn't you do something earlier? No. How about that was good. Thank you. I respect it. And just take the win.

All right, let's talk about Greenland. Apparently there was a poll on whether they wanted independence or to stay owned by Denmark. Now I don't know if this is a scientific poll or an internet poll or what it was. I'm not sure we can totally trust this. But two-thirds of them wanted independence and one-third wanted to stay with Denmark, if you believe that poll.

What I say is so two-thirds of them want independence. Let's check again in two months. If you check back in two months I'll bet you 80% say they want independence and/or some kind of association with the United States that's stronger. Because that's the Trump effect. Trump will find a way to convince the Greenlandic people — I think it's Greenlandic the people are called, not Greenlanders. See if I'm right. I need a