Stephen A. Smith reveals advocacy for HBCUs was main reason for meeting with President Trump

The ESPN commentator was a guest at a dinner at the White House. While he compared Trump to Don King in some ways, Smith countered Trump regarding questions involving the economy and the 2025 federal cuts that led to mass layoffs of Black women in the federal workplace.

Months after a public back-and-forth with President Trump, who questioned his intelligence, among other insults, ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith met with Trump at a White House dinner alongside comedian Bill Maher and Kid Rock.

While the tenor of the conversation was cordial, Smith says not only did the chance encounter allow him to raise his concerns directly with Trump, but it also allowed him to share one of his main grievances with the administration: support for Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Smith spent 36 minutes of his “Straight Shooter with Stephen A.” show highlighting his meeting with Trump as a guest of Maher. Still, in a conversation with Sean Hannity on FOX News, Smith said that although Trump had an answer for every topic, similar to Don King, the one he didn’t have was regarding HBCU funding and the Futures Act, which Trump signed into legislation to allocate $255 million to Black colleges annually.

“I wanted to make the point to him because his fixation on the opposition rather than DEI,” Smith told Hannity. “What happened was that even though the federal government, the feds, had allocated those funds for HBCUs, the flip side to that is that private corporations had curbed some of that spending to some degree. They were hesitant that they would be targeted for engaging racial preferences and things of that nature.”

Smith says Trump would consider the notion. When asked about the thousands of Black women who were without jobs due to federal cuts that began shortly after Trump resumed office, Smith says the President countered with the claim that those women were “thriving in the private sector.” A notion Smith firmly disagreed with.

“Respectfully, sir,” Smith recalled. “That is not the sentiment emanating from my community. That’s not what you hear Black women talking about. Regardless of what the numbers show, it comes across like you were talking to CNBC or CEOs or something rather than people at the kitchen table, because they are feeling it. “

On his own show, Smith elaborated further on why HBCU funding was his direct reason for going to the White House.

“Anytime I see HBCUs in trouble, I’m going to do what I can to help. It’s just that simple,” he said. “If that means going to the White House and talking to the President of the United States, assuming I’m invited to do so, I am going to do that. If it means shaking his hand and being respectful, even though I’m gonna do that anyway because I’m gonna respect the office, I’m gonna do that anyway.”