Stephen A Smith challenges Trump, Vance, Hegseth to debate after Jackie Robinson story deleted from DOD site

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Despite a Department of Defense official telling OutKick that the purging of a feature about Jackie Robinson's military service was done accidentally, Stephen A. Smith does not think "it was an honest mistake at all."

While the story had been removed, the new URL, which had also included the letters "DEI" in it, directed readers to a 404 page - the story, and its original link, were restored on Wednesday afternoon.

Smith took to ESPN's "First Take," where he called out the Trump administration for "not being honest about" "a few things," adding there has been "a concerted effort" to "scrub history."

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Stephen A. Smith speaking in 2021. (IMAGN)

"It's not so much that you want to eradicate DEI programs…how dare you try to ignore the reason for its existence in the first place? Similar to civil rights legislation in 1964, similar to things like affirmative action, similar to things like the Rooney Rule in the National Football League, etcetera, how dare you try to get away with highlighting why it needed to exist in the first place?" Smith said. "It was because of the iniquities of folks in the United States of America - primarily the White power structure that exists. It is a fact. It is known throughout history that it is a fact. They want to gloss over and erase the need for those things to take place to begin with."

Late Major League Baseball icon Jackie Robinson. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

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Smith said "nobody is calling out" Trump, but "I will." He did so by offering to debate him,