Stephen A. Smith, the prominent sports broadcaster and vocal supporter of President Donald Trump, has offered an account of a recent dinner with the president that, despite its friendly tone, illustrated the gap between Trump's perception of his own popularity and the picture painted by national polling.

Smith described the meal — which he shared with Trump and entertainers Kid Rock and Bill Maher — during an appearance Friday night on CNN's "Laura Coates Live." As Mediaite reported, Smith "spilled the tea on his dinner with President Donald Trump," recounting what he found most shocking about the evening. The grouping itself was notable: Maher, a longtime Trump critic, had dined with Trump at the White House earlier in 2025 after an invitation Kid Rock helped arrange.

According to Smith, Trump acknowledged that Republicans are likely to lose the House, and possibly the Senate, in the upcoming midterm elections. But the president expressed confidence that he could reverse the damage by campaigning personally and rallying voters across the country. The midterms, set for November 2026, will decide control of Congress for the final two years of Trump's term — stakes sharpened by the 22nd Amendment's bar on his seeking another term as president. Since World War II, the party holding the White House has lost House seats in all but a handful of midterm elections.

"He was saying 'I'm going to campaign. I'm going to go all over this country and help whoever I have to help and do whatever I have to do because the people love me,'" Smith recounted. "I said 'sir, the polls show you to be in the 30 percentile in terms of popularity.'"

Smith said Trump dismissed the legion of polls pointing in that direction.

"He said 'did you know that 99 percent of Republicans actually approve of me? So the people out there that are conservatives, that are Republicans, they love me, I love them. They will vote the way that I want them to vote.' That's how he feels. That's the level of confidence that he has," Smith said.

The president's confidence, however, is not supported by the numbers emerging from nearly every poll, including surveys conducted by Fox News. One Fox News poll released this week asked registered voters what worried them most heading into the midterms. The leading concern was not affordability or the economy but government corruption, with 88 percent of voters saying they were "extremely or very concerned" about it — a figure that surpassed even worries over high gas and grocery prices and healthcare.

The same survey showed Trump's approval rating sinking to 36 percent, the lowest level Fox has ever recorded for him. In other polls, his approval has dipped into the 20s. Approval ratings at this stage of a presidential term are among the most closely watched gauges of the political environment heading into a midterm cycle.

Whether Trump follows through on his vow to campaign across the country — and whether the leading voter concern in the current polling, government corruption, remains at the top of the issue list — will be among the storylines to track as November 2026 approaches.

Smith also expressed astonishment that Trump was able to devote more than four hours to the dinner, given the range of problems confronting the administration and the nation.

"It was shocking. I didn't I certainly didn't expect that amount of time. I knew that we were expecting to have dinner. I knew that we were going to have an opportunity to talk. I give him all the credit in the world because he didn't run from any questions ... But he also took us for a tour of the White House, took us to the West Wing, took us to the Rose Garden, took us to the colonnade where you got pictures of every single president, but Joe Biden," said Smith.