DISNEY CORPORATE SYNERGY: ABC’s Jon Karl and ESPN’s Screamin’ A. Smith Team Up, Firefight the Russia Hoax Doc Drop

Jorge Bonilla
July 27th, 2025 2:14 PM

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The legacy media continue their five-alarm firefighting of the damning revelations contained within the Russia Hoax document drop, as published by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. ABC’s Jon Karl joins the fray in a wild segment with corporate cousin Stephen A. Smith of ESPN.

Watch as Stephen A. comes on and downplays the severity of the document disclosure while dismissing it as a distraction and bemoaning the sullying of the good name of Barack Hussein Obama (click "expand" to view transcript):

JON KARL: I'm joined now by the host of ESPN's “First Take”, Stephen A. Smith, who has two new shows coming to Sirius XM in September, a sports show and a politics show. And there is no shortage of material on the political front. So, Stephen A., thank you for joining us. Great to have you back on “This Week”.

STEPHEN A. SMITH: My pleasure.

KARL: So let -- let's start with the -- what we saw in the White House this week. Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, coming out making some extraordinary claims about Barack Obama. The President of the United States accusing Obama of treason. Again, no evidence whatsoever for any of this stuff. But what did you think as you were watching that?

SMITH: I thought it was -- I thought it was a lot of hyperbole to be quite honest with you. You know, we can talk about the veracity of the things that she was saying and challenge that to some degree, and I'm quite sure people on the left will do so. But at the end of the day, courtesy of Donald Trump, what are you going to do about it in the end other than smear the former President of the United States, Barack Obama, and sully his name? What else is going to happen to him? He's not in danger of any lawlessness. He's not going to jail or anything like that. You know, based on the Supreme Court's decision from last, you know, from a few months ago, essentially, if you're the president of the United States, due to Trump and what he was pushing, you essentially get to operate with relative impunity as long as you're making decisions, you know, from a government perspective as the commander-in-chief. So, Barack Obama doesn't really have much to worry about. Once again, I think this is Trump throwing food to his base because, obviously, if you rile up MAGA to some degree by highlighting the things that have transpired in years past that basically buffer your points that you were making, you look good with them. And those kind of things that have been -- being discussed has me looking at the president with a raised eyebrow because I'm saying to myself since the bill was the Big, Beautiful Bill and there's so much good that emanates from the bill, you literally are distracting our attention away from that for issues like this? I find it hard to believe that this is going to amount to anything to be quite honest with you. There's -- obviously, you look at, you know, the CIA, the FBI, look at their involvement and look at weaponizing the intelligence agencies, I'm certainly not trying to dismiss that as a concern because it is a concern. It is something we should all pay attention to. But to call Barack Obama out by name with no evidence that you've put forth, I mean, I would need to see more. But if you're going to incriminate a former President of the United States like that with such, you know, hyperbolic words like treason and what have you --

(CROSSTALK)

KARL: Treason. TREASON, he said.

SMITH: -- more information before you do that. That's what he said. That's what she said.

(CROSSTALK)

KARL: And --

SMITH: That's what he said.

KARL: And to be clear, I mean, I went through all that Tulsi Gabbard did. It was -- there was no evidence whatsoever to the allegations they were making.

If the Chief Political Correspondent of a major network truly went through the DNI disclosures and found “no evidence whatsoever” of altered intelligence in support of the allegations made out by Gabbard, then reasonable individuals are left to assess whether the aforementioned correspondent is being untruthful or lacks reading comprehension. A proper reading of the several post-January 5th documents leave no real alternative but the former. This is mostly what Karl did, in addition to the occasional high-pitched squawking of "TREASON", as he played straight man to Smith.

What is interesting, as Smith attempts to carve himself out a lane in the pundit sphere, is his full-throated defense of Obama on Disney air. Smith here seems far more concerned with the sullying of the god-king’s name, with utterances more befitting a cleric denouncing blasphemy, than with the very real dangers of weaponized intelligence and with the criminal conspiracy that abused the aforementioned intelligence in order to subvert the peaceful transfer of power. The corporate alignment with the rest of the Obama/Biden sycophant news division is impossible to ignore.

On his eponymous YouTube show, however, Smith didn’t downplay the seriousness of the allegations. Nor did he rise up and defend the name of Obama:

Smith did say that the doc drop was a distraction from Epstein- but did indicate the seriousness of the allegations and did not dismiss them outright, contrary to his legacy media counterparts. But in altering his take in order to fit ABC’s line, Smith showed his alignment with the legacy media he seeks to distinguish himself from.

Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned segment as aired on ABC This Week on Sunday, July 27th, 2025:

JON KARL: I'm joined now by the host of ESPN's “First Take”, Stephen A. Smith, who has two new shows coming to Sirius XM in September, a sports show and a politics show. And there is no shortage of material on the political front. So, Stephen A., thank you for joining us. Great to have you back on “This Week”.

STEPHEN A. SMITH: My pleasure.

KARL: So let -- let's start with the -- what we saw in the White House this week. Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, coming out making some extraordinary claims about Barack Obama. The President of the United States accusing Obama of treason. Again, no evidence whatsoever for any of this stuff. But what did you think as you were watching that?

SMITH: I thought it was -- I thought it was a lot of hyperbole to be quite honest with you. You know, we can talk about the veracity of the things that she was saying and challenge that to some degree, and I'm quite sure people on the left will do so. But at the end of the day, courtesy of Donald Trump, what are you going to do about it in the end other than smear the former President of the United States, Barack Obama, and sully his name? What else is going to happen to him? He's not in danger of any lawlessness. He's not going to jail or anything like that. You know, based on the Supreme Court's decision from last, you know, from a few months ago, essentially, if you're the president of the United States, due to Trump and what he was pushing, you essentially get to operate with relative impunity as long as you're making decisions, you know, from a government perspective as the commander-in-chief. So, Barack Obama doesn't really have much to worry about. Once again, I think this is Trump throwing food to his base because, obviously, if you rile up MAGA to some degree by highlighting the things that have transpired in years past that basically buffer your points that you were making, you look good with them. And those kind of things that have been -- being discussed has me looking at the president with a raised eyebrow because I'm saying to myself since the bill was the Big, Beautiful Bill and there's so much good that emanates from the bill, you literally are distracting our attention away from that for issues like this? I find it hard to believe that this is going to amount to anything to be quite honest with you. There's -- obviously, you look at, you know, the CIA, the FBI, look at their involvement and look at weaponizing the intelligence agencies, I'm certainly not trying to dismiss that as a concern because it is a concern. It is something we should all pay attention to. But to call Barack Obama out by name with no evidence that you've put forth, I mean, I would need to see more. But if you're going to incriminate a former President of the United States like that with such, you know, hyperbolic words like treason and what have you --

(CROSSTALK)

KARL: Treason. TREASON, he said.

SMITH: -- more information before you do that. That's what he said. That's what she said.

(CROSSTALK)

KARL: And --

SMITH: That's what he said.

KARL: And to be clear, I mean, I went through all that Tulsi Gabbard did. It was -- there was no evidence whatsoever to the allegations they were making. And then, you know, to -- maybe, it's because of your point about the immunity decision, but Trump actually suggested last night- that that Kamala Harris should be prosecuted for allegedly buying the votes, endorsements of celebrities like Beyonce. Again, no evidence to this stuff. But I mean, what --

SMITH: Well --

KARL: -- this is back-to-back, almost in sports, a couple days- that the President of the United States calling for prosecuting the former president and the former vice president.

SMITH: Well, listen, the -- at some point in time, somebody needs to challenge the president on what he's doing now because if what you're doing is so great, why would you want to distract our attention? Wait, that's not the Donald Trump we know. The Donald Trump that we know lives in the moment of things that he deems to be doing successfully in his eyes. If the Big, Beautiful Bill, you know, preserves the 2017 tax cuts and does so much for the economy and does so much for small businesses and what have you, like he has proclaimed, why would you want to distract our attention with all of this stuff? Maybe you're evading the issue of the Epstein files because your Administration overpromised and underproduced. We all know what you were telling MAGA, right, that there was a whole bunch of stuff to be released, and certainly it was forthcoming and certainly it did not happen. And so, when you look at it from that standpoint, you find yourself saying, excuse me, the former president, treason, former vice president and Democratic nominee for the presidency of the United States, you know, you want her prosecuted. It just seems to be, I wouldn't say much ado about nothing because I'm not trying to absolve anything from anyone in terms of any kind of actions that they may have engaged in that, dare I say, are illegal. We don't know that. We haven't seen any proof of that. But for Trump to be focused on, on this, this is where the big problem comes in.

KARL: OK.

SMITH: You are looking backwards when America needs to look forward, and that's the problem right now. Let's look -- let's move forward.

KARL: OK. So let me move forward on the Democrats. We were just talking on the Roundtable --

SMITH: Yeah.

KARL: -- about this new Wall Street Journal poll that shows even on issues where the public does not approve of the president or of Republicans, they actually have a lower approval rating of the Democrats.

SMITH: Yeah. Well, that's easy to understand. One party has a leader in Donald Trump. You can’t refute. Yeah. Nobody can refute that. He is the leader of the GOP and the Republican Party. Make no mistake about it. The Democrats don't have a leader. We -- I see -- who -- who's your leader? Who is it? Is it AOC? Is it Bernie Sanders? Is it Jasmine Crockett? Who is it? You know, we respect so many people on Capitol Hill. I'm certainly not here to cast aspersions upon individuals, but as a body, the Democratic Party just looks very, very bad right now because they look leaderless. They don't have a definitive voice that anybody can depend on. When we look towards 2028, for example, we see a guy like Governor Wes Moore, who I like a lot, and I think is very capable, a Josh Shapiro, the Governor of Pennsylvania, who I like and I think is very, very capable. But when you talk about a national voice for the Democratic Party, it is literally non-existent. You have no one right now. I'm in New York City. You've got this guy Zohran Mamdani that won the Democratic nominee over former government -- over former governor, Andrew Cuomo. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Eric Adams are going against one another as an independent, and there's fear about them canceling one another out and set- and paving the way for Mamdani, who's a renowned socialist. That's not what America really, really is about. Nevertheless, he could end up being the mayor of New York City. Why?

KARL: Yes.

SMITH: Because when you don't have any kind of leader whatsoever, you are going to look to grab one any way --

KARL: All right.

SMITH: -- you can, any chance you get. That's what the situation is with the Democratic Party. They do not have a leader.

KARL: All right. Stephen A. Smith, thank you for joining us. We'll have you back. Appreciate your time.

SMITH: All right.

 

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