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ESPN star Paul Finebaum said that he was finalizing a potential interview with President Donald Trump in 2019 before the network finally did it before being able to sit with him.
Finebaum spoke to the founder of Outkick, Clay Travis, and opened on several subjects, including his attempt to interview Trump for his ESPN program. Trump was to appear in the LSU and Alabama match that fall and Finebaum said he wanted to go beyond.
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ESPN Paul Finebaum’s advertiser before the 2024 Sec 2024 championship match at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on December 7, 2024. (Brett Davis / Imagn images)
“Our producer said we have to do something big,” recalls Finebaum. “” College Gameday “was going to be there. Obviously, our show is not” College Gameday “. So, I contacted a friend of my friends at DC, he said:” You have Trump? “I said, yeah!
“I was going to” get up “and” take “for the first time in New York two days a week. I said that I would be in New York on Wednesday. He said:” I think we could do it in the White House on Thursday morning. Can you get there? “I said,” Yes, I can get there. He said, “Allow me to sink the flag’s mast”. He sent me a text saying: “Air seemingly”.
“I called my boss and they killed him.”
The former ESPN host makes the position on men in clear female sports: “ We know that it is ridiculous’ ”
President Donald Trump and his wife Melania were in Stade Bryant-Denny stadium to watch the Alabama match against LSU on Saturday, November 9, 2019. (Staff photo / Gary Cosby Jr.)
Finebaum told Travis that he was “devastated” that the interview was nixed at the last second. He said he was told that they were not “allowed to mix politics with sports”.
The long-standing analyst of university football suggested that he had been caught up in deprived since the university basketball analyst Andy Katz chose the NCAA basketball tournament with President Barack Obama.
“I think the answer is quite obvious that Andy Katz went to the White House every year (for the support). It was a turning point,” said Finebaum. “It was not at all politics at all. It was just the idea of going to the White House to interview the President of the United States. It was not a policy. It was a football match. The biggest game of the year in university football.
“I never knew exactly where the” kill button “came from, but that didn’t happen.”
President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the White House dining room on Monday, September 29, 2025, in Washington. (AP photo / Alex Brandon)
ESPN refused to comment.
The complete conversation between Finebaum and Travis will be broadcast on Tuesday morning.
