During an interview with Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), radio host Stephen A. Smith offered an impassioned commentary pushing back on the notion that gender played a role in Vice President Kamala Harris’s loss in the 2024 election.

STEPHEN A. SMITH, HOST: Representative James Clyburn right here on Straight Shooter with yours truly, Stephen A. Smith. Let’s get to this question. When you think about what the Democratic Party has been in recent years and where it is right now, how are you feeling? Not about being a Democrat, but about being, about the state of affairs going on with this Democratic Party. A lot of people look at the Democratic Party right now and they question whether or not there’s any true leadership. And do you have somebody that can really, really resonate to a point where you can end up knocking off whatever GOP candidate they throw out there? REP. JAMES CLYBURN (D-SC): Well, you know, Hakeem Jeffries is our leader. Okay. He’s an outstanding leader. And one of the things you ought to look for in a leader is who can create a climate within which we can find common ground for everybody to come to the table. That’s why those four people signed on to that discharge petition because Hakeem Jeffries has created a climate in our caucus, on the floor, to allow them the comfort that they need to come to the issue. For some strange reason, people want to judge leadership by how loud you can talk, by how dramatically you can cuss. That’s not Hakeem Jeffries. And quite frankly, that’s not Jim Clyburn. I do believe in making headway rather than headlines. And that’s what Hakeem Jeffries has been around. SMITH: Respectfully, here’s where the problem lies. Everything you just described could easily describe the incumbent in office as we speak. Popularity, he’s a populist. He can get loud. He can be a bit acerbic. He can do those kinds of things. And you said people judge leadership in a certain kind of way. And I’m saying to you, well, that’s who the president is. And apparently, you know, that’s who you would have had to beat in 2024. That didn’t work. If J.D. Vance, the vice president, decides to mimic Trump’s behavior, he’ll probably be the popular candidate for 2028. How concerned are you that that’s what you have to compete against? And how can you adapt to that? CLYBURN: Well, I don’t think we have to adapt to that. And I think that’s the problem now. We should not make normal that which is abnormal. That is abnormal behavior that we’re getting from this president. And why should you or me or anybody else try to find ways to make it normal? I don’t consider it to be normal to insult. I’m the father of three highly intelligent black women. And when I see someone in office that look for opportunities to insult black women, which is what this president does day in and day out. Well, that’s normalized. SMITH: That’s one of the categories because to me, he insults everybody. CLYBURN: Well, nobody should be voting for him. Okay. SMITH: 77 million people did. CLYBURN: Yes, absolutely. Because people confuse boisterous behavior with leadership. SMITH: Is it possible that that’s not what they did? That instead what they did was look at the Democratic side and say they didn’t like what they were getting because the Democratic side didn’t represent what James Clyburn stands for. It didn’t represent what others have stood for that are traditional members of the Democratic party. They saw a change shifting within the Democratic party that leaned a bit further left that would deem to be just as unreasonable as folks on the far right. And as a result, they chose what they deemed to be the best of two evils per se. CLYBURN: Well, the question is why they didn’t see maybe they couldn’t get beyond gender. And our nominee happened to have been a Black or African-American, Asian-American woman. So it’s one thing not to be able to get there. It’s something else when the reasons you aren’t able to get there are not normal and or not apropos. SMITH: Well, let me say this because I’m not going to say this behind your back and not say it to your face. I’m sitting right here in front of you. I emphatically disagree with what you just alluded to in terms of it might be gender-driven. I think about Hillary Rodham Clinton getting 2.9 million votes more than Trump in 2016. I think about Kamala Harris getting nearly 75 million votes, the largest for a Democrat in history. I think about governors in New York, Governor-elects in Jersey and recently Virginia. I think about former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, who was considered one of the most influential figures in our nation’s history. I think about all of these things and I say those things don’t hint towards a gender-driven agenda where it’s okay, because she’s a female, I’m not going to vote for her because I think if that was the case, Kamala Harris wouldn’t have been immediately inserted even though she had only 107 days to win the election. That’s my opinion. And I certainly disagree with Michelle Obama when she said she doesn’t think we’re ready. I think we’re very ready as a country to elect a woman because I think women by and large are smarter, more composed, more disciplined than the men have proven to be. That’s my position. You don’t feel that way? CLYBURN: I feel that way. I got three hot intelligence back then. SMITH: I have two. CLYBURN: Who I have followed. I stayed married to the same woman for 58 years. Would not be where I got to be but for her. I believe all of that. But I also know that there are people, black and white, who will refuse to vote for a woman. I know that. And I think you know that. Now, the question is, when you got an electoral college vote and you can very, in a sophisticated way, target your election, your campaign so as to make a difference in the states that will yield the electoral votes, which is what they did and were successful at it. So Hillary Clinton got three million more votes than Trump. But she didn’t get elected president. SMITH: It’s an electoral college. CLYBURN: Yes. And I’m just saying gender and race can make a difference in the electoral college, which is why I wrote this book. And this book will tell you why these eight people, African-Americans, except for one who choose to be an African-American, these eight people lost their standing in the political community over the issue of race. Nothing else. So don’t tell me that all of a sudden race does not matter. Historically, in this country, it always has. SMITH: I would never say race didn’t matter. When you say race, I didn’t utter a word. I’m talking about when you said gender. I was saying gender more so. CLYBURN: All of them are men. And at the time that they were elected, women were not allowed to vote. Why? If they’re so intelligent, as you say, why were they not allowed to vote in the 1870s when these men served? Just because they were women.

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