Stephen A. Smith said the Democratic Party would need to be “purged” before he would run for president under the party.
Smith joined CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, where host Jake Tapper asked him about the continued talk about him running in the 2028 presidential election.
“If you were to run for president, though, would it be as a Democrat?” Tapper asked.
“I’m a registered independent … who leans left,” Smith replied. “I’m fiscally conservative when it comes to my money. I’m socially liberal. I’m liberal when it comes to social issues pretty much across the board.”
Smith has ramped up the idea about launching a presidential bid and has often expressed criticism of the current Democratic Party.
“If I had to run it would be as a Democrat, but I’m not happy with the Democratic Party. So the Democratic Party is presently constructed,” Smith said. “It would pretty much need to be purged in order for me to assume that I would want to be associated with them.”
Tapper asked Smith about who he would like to see purged from the party for him to seriously be associated with it. Smith said he wasn’t going to name any names about who he would remove from party leadership, but slammed the far left and “excessive spending” in the past.
Smith argued that the Democratic Party spread messages that weren’t “emblematic of what most Americans are thinking about,” including paying mortgages and buying groceries.
He noted that he is a political outsider who is “not qualified” to run for office, but said people are calling on him to step up and use his voice.
“I think the kind of impact that I could have as a centrist, as a moderate, as somebody who believes in being sensical and engaging in common sense. Unfortunately, I believe that if I did take this very, very seriously, and I moved forward and I decided that I wanted to be a politician, do I believe I could win? You’re damn right,” Smith said.
“It’s because of the state of our politics in the nation’s capital, the politicians that we’re looking at and the fact that we don’t believe for one second that they are serving the interests of the American people, nor are they interested in it. People look at me and they know one thing, I would be interested in serving the American people and doing what’s in the best interest of this country,” he continued.