Stephen A. Smith claims people are being harmed by Caitlin Clark discourse
Stephen A. Smith spent part of Friday’s edition of ESPN’s First Take on the pressure being applied to Caitlin Clark to speak about social and political issues, and he aimed most of his criticism at the people applying it rather than at the Indiana Fever guard.
“There are a lot of people who are being negatively affected because they’re using her as a narrative and as an excuse to throw venom and hostility toward contemporaries,” Smith said.
The question reached Clark through a teammate. Fever guard Sophie Cunningham told ESPN in an article published July 21 that she favors limiting transgender girls‘ and women’s access to women’s sports, and the reaction followed Indiana to arenas in Seattle, Portland and Minnesota. Clark did not meet with reporters until after the Fever’s 108-100 loss at Minnesota on Aug. 2, when the first question she took was about the fallout.
“I think, for us, it’s not really a discussion we really have in our locker room,” Clark said that night. “It’s for leagues and governing bodies to work with their athletes to find solutions, but my focus is on basketball.”
What Caitlin Clark said when reporters asked her a second time
That answer became its own story within a day. Megyn Kelly called Clark a coward in a post on X, while Barstool founder Dave Portnoy defended her right to stay out of it. Clark returned to the subject on Thursday, before Indiana’s 86-84 overtime loss to the Las Vegas Aces, and again declined to stake out a position on the underlying question.
“I think first and foremost, like you know, you speak when you feel like you want to speak,” Clark said. “I try to just show up and be myself every single day.”
Cunningham, for her part, told ESPN she had received a wave of negative feedback accusing her of hating trans people, which she said she never expressed.
Smith has been among the loudest voices on Clark’s treatment this season, though usually on a different subject. In June he criticized the WNBA over the physical play directed at her, telling the league it was still building and warning it not to get in the way of its own growth.
“There are a lot of people who are being negatively affected because they’re using her as a narrative and as an excuse to throw venom and hostility toward contemporaries.”@stephenasmith speaks up on Caitlin Clark addressing social issues ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/0cxjuc5NfX
— First Take (@FirstTake) August 7, 2026
His argument on Friday moved the criticism away from officials and players and toward the audience, which is a considerably harder group to legislate. Clark, for her part, framed it as a 24-year-old’s ongoing negotiation with the job.
“I’m trying to navigate playing at the highest level, and then you know sometimes you get asked a lot of questions, and sometimes that’s your responsibility,” she said Thursday.
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