"I’m going to get them all back" - Stephen A Smith claims Donald Trump ran for POTUS due to failed bid to buy Bills
The Buffalo Bills were once a target for former POTUS Donald Trump, but other league owners torpedoed the deal. At least that's what Stephen A. Smith is claiming.
Smith appeared in his regular role as a commentator on ESPN's First Take on Thursday, and Colin Kaepernick quickly became a topic of discussion. That's when Smith decided to enlighten his audience with his shocking revelation.
Smith claimed that Trump only wanted to become the leader of the free world as an act of revenge against the NFL for rebuffing his efforts to become the leader of the Bills Mafia:
"In 2014, Donald Trump wanted to purchase the Buffalo Bills. This was before he ever decided to run for President. Donald Trump called yours truly, that would be me, and he said that he wanted to purchase the Buffalo Bills. And I'll never forget what he said to me. He said, 'If those owners screw me over, I’m going to show them. I’m going to get them all back. I'm going to run for President of the United States.'"
Stephen A Smith shared that Donald Trump called him in 2014 when attempting to buy the Buffalo Bills and told him-
“If they screw me over. I am going to show them. I’m going to get them all back I’m going to run for President of the United States." https://t.co/pw8tUef1tc
His hot take didn't end there as he stated that Trump's response to the "anthem kneeling" controversy in 2016 was directly impacted by his previous dealings with the NFL:
"It was about him politicizing the situation, for his own benefit, to cause havoc for NFL owners who had screwed him owner from becoming an owner and becoming part of their club. Whether he’ll ever admit it or not, who the hell knows, but I’m telling you that’s what happened with Colin Kaepernick."
There was the usual Twitter meltdown as users were quick to mock Smith's claims.
@awfulannouncing Lol so Trump ran for President because he couldn’t buy the Bills. Nobody with a brain actually believes this
So the Bills are to blame for everything is what I’m taking away twitter.com/awfulannouncin…
Did Donald Trump ever try to purchase the Buffalo Bills?
This is not the first time the longtime ESPN personality has discussed his phone call with the former president. In 2017, also on First Take, Smith recounted the same story almost verbatim.
Is Smith telling the truth? Despite having retold the story on several occasions, it has remained consistent. It is true that Trump did indeed try to buy the Buffalo franchise in 2014 following the death of their founder Ralph Wilson.
The former president's bid was believed to have been below $900 million, and the team was eventually sold for a reported $1.4 billion to the Pegula family after they outbid Trump and musician Jon Bon Jovi.
The bid was in the public eye once more in 2019, when Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen testified before the US House of Representatives that he falsified documents to try and obtain a loan for a potential Bills purchase. So it would be fair to say that Smith's story has a foundation of truth; whether or not all parts of his account match is rather subjective.