Stephen A. Smith has made a career out of talking. Out of sharing his opinions and thoughts, often in a memorable way. That’s a big part of why he has become such a critical piece of ESPN’s lineup.

But it’s in his other role, as the host of Straight Shooter on SiriusXM‘s POTUS Channel, that he steps back and listens. Listens to interviewees, including people like Ted Cruz and Mike Johnson, but also Zohran Mamdani and Abdul El-Sayed, but also regular people, who call in to vent, or to ask questions, or just talk about the often broken state of politics today.

“I learn a lot, listen to a lot of people, the concerns that they have about quality of life, what’s going on in the United States of America, and it really gives me insight into the fabric of America and a lot of things that are going through the hearts and minds of American citizens throughout this country, because they call in and express their thoughts about different things,” says Smith, speaking with The Hollywood Reporter in an interview. “We’re not all on the same page, of course, but that’s what makes it go around.”

Smith is one of the flagship voices on POTUS, joining the likes of Chris Cuomo, Dan Abrams, Steve Scully, Julie Mason, Michael Smerconish and more recently former Ohio Gov. John Kasich. The channel has become a centerpiece of SiriusXM’s talk strategy, which includes conservative talk through the Patriot Channel, liberal talk through the Progress Channel.

But POTUS is different, it’s more about the conversation, the back and forth. Strong opinions, but led by people not always easy to pin down.

“I would not call [POTUS] a centrist channel, and certainly we are not a wishy-washy middle,” says Dave Gorab, VP and GM of SiriusXM’s talk programming. “More and more Americans identify as politically independent. So the concept of finding hosts who stake that position of saying they also want to have independent positions, they want to share all viewpoints, bringing that all into one place, where it can be welcomed and debated on a channel with no political position. It’s a very unique proposition.”

In a world filled with openly partisan media (including on SiriusXM’s own lineup!), it is a strategically independent play, defined not by ideology but by openness, with guests that span the political spectrum and listener call-ins that reflect that range of views too.

“I was actually listening to Dan Abrams last week on his radio show, and he had a caller on, and just verbatim, Dan on his show said to the caller, ‘you sound like my kind of listener, independent with strong views. And I thought that really summed up the channel in a nutshell. We’re not trying to find the middle. We’re not trying to find consensus. What we’re trying to do is have a dialogue,” Gorab says. “Chris Cuomo says all the time, ‘conversation is the cure.’ So the notion that you can come here, one caller can be on one side, the next caller can be on the other side. The hosts are going to engage the country in that conversation, and again, especially at a time where we’re seeing more and more independence in the news, it’s just a very fertile time.”

Smith says he has a self-inflicted “mandate” to have guests from all different points of view, expressing consternation at the current state of affairs.

“I don’t like the one-sided coverage that I see. No matter which channel you turn to, whether it be Fox News or MSNBC or CNN, I want I want people to know that I’m willing to listen to both sides,” he says, while acknowledging that he is friends with folks like Fox’s Sean Hannity. “I’m going to challenge you. I’m going to make sure that I ask the questions that the other side would want to hear an answer to, that the opposition wants the answer to. That’s going to always be me. That’s just a part of my DNA. But in the end, I want you to know that I’m listening, and I really am interested in what you have to say.”

That’s not to say there’s no room for partisanship (Patriot and Progress fill that need), but the satellite radio giant thinks it has figured out another way in.

“A lot of our hosts on POTUS recommend people have a balanced diet, and they recommend visiting all of these different places,” Gorab says, adding that he is also looking for new voices to add to that lineup. “Anyone who’s really relevant at a particular time to the movement or is reaching an audience that perhaps you know we’re not reaching right now, yeah, we are on the lookout for that.”

But to hear Smith say it, it’s also filling a gap, similar to how Fox News filled a vacuum when it launched in 1996.

“There’s an abundance of millions upon millions of American citizens who felt that their voices weren’t being heard until Fox came along,” Smith says. “There’s a lot of conservatives out there who felt their voices weren’t being heard. Liberals, they have their own belief system, and they feel like some of the things that have been depicted about them is either not accurate or it doesn’t scratch the surface of what they truly are about, what they feel, et cetera, and they believe that the vast majority of American people would absolutely side with them.”

“To me, it’s my job to to do what I can to put all of that out there, to let everybody know, to give them a visual about what each side is all about, what each side stands for, and to let them judge accordingly,” as opposed to adding some sizzle to it, where I’m I’m a bit slanted or I’m a bit pilgrim.” he adds. “I may have my beliefs, I may have my feelings on a case by case basis, but if you disagree with me, I’m not going to think you’re racist just because of it. I’m not going to think you’re somebody that doesn’t care about America or care about the American people. You just have your own vision about what you think it should be, and that may be different from my own, my audience, or anybody else.”

Smith adds, “And I like people to know that I’m interested in mass appeal. I’m not interested in appealing to one or other group of people. I’m interested in appealing to everybody. And by doing that, I embrace everybody. I embrace them in terms of being willing to listen to what they have to say, challenging them to be as honest and authentic as they possibly be can be, as fearless, I might add, in expressing what they want to express, and then let the chips fall where they may as it pertains to the electorate, the voter out there. That’s what I think is the way. That’s how I think is the way that it should be done.”