Bill Maher and Stephen A. Smith Discuss Why Black Voters Supported Trump

Real Time With Bill Maher is off the air for the holidays, but its host is still airing his thoughts on the 2024 presidential election. In the latest episode of his Club Random podcast, Bill Maher and guest Stephen A. Smith discussed why U.S. President-elect Donald Trump gained favor with Black voters.

“What I think Black people think about Trump, like, is he a racist? Yeah, but they think every white person is kind of a racist,” Maher speculated. “And do they think that white people behind closed doors talk like Trump? Yeah. He’s just a crazy person. … He just says it out loud.”

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“That last part right there,” Smith emphasized. “I don’t want to speak for all Black people or whatever … but I will say this to you. You know, being a Black man, you don’t look at white people and automatically think they’re racist. You automatically know they’re different than you, that they think different than you, that they come from a different cultural background and experience things differently than they do.”

The ESPN Radio host continued: “So that second part is very, very important because when you talk about how Trump talks, we’re going like this: ‘So that’s the first time he talked like that, when he became president? Who the f*** you think you playing with?’ We know better than that. We know better than that. We know that ain’t the first time, and we know that the people that he was friends with all of these years — he talked just like that around y’all, and y’all didn’t have no problem with it don’t act like you have a problem now.”

Maher also said that Trump’s motivation isn’t “I don’t like Black people” but instead “Everybody must love me.”

Later in the podcast, Smith expressed his frustration with Democrats. “They don’t know what the hell they’re selling,” the SportsCenter NBA analyst said. “I’m just going to say it plain. The Democrats have gotten on my last damn nerve. It wasn’t for Trump, I would have voted Republican because I’m so sick of how they are. It’s always about the other side and engaging in demagoguery for you to get my vote, as opposed to really articulating what you’re bringing to the table to offer me and my community.”

Trump upped his share of Black voter support in the 2024 election, as the Associated Press reported. While about 8 in 10 Black voters supported for this year’s Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, that’s down from the about 9 in 10 who voted for 2020’s Democratic nominee, Joe Biden. Plus, 3 in 10 Black men under the age of 45 voted for Trump this year, which is about double the support Trump got from that demographic in 2020.