Paul Finebaum says he nearly landed an interview with President Donald Trump in 2019 — until ESPN pulled the plug.
The college football analyst told OutKick’s Clay Travis he was close to securing Trump for his ESPN show ahead of the Alabama-LSU showdown.
“Our producer said we gotta do something big,” Finebaum recalled. “‘College Gameday’ was going to be there. Obviously, our show isn’t ‘College Gameday.’ So, I reached out to a friend of mine in D.C. He said, ‘You wanna get Trump?’ I said, yeah!”
Finebaum said his contact in Washington arranged for a potential sit-down at the White House. “He said, ‘I think we could do it at the White House Thursday morning. Can you get there?’ I said, ‘Yeah I can get there. I’m in New York.’ He said, ‘Looking good.’”
But just as plans were coming together, ESPN pulled the plug. “I called my boss and they killed it,” Finebaum said. He admitted he was “devastated” by the decision.
He said network executives told him they couldn’t “mix politics with sports.” That surprised Finebaum, who pointed out that ESPN analyst Andy Katz had picked NCAA brackets with President Barack Obama for years.
“I think the answer’s pretty evident that Andy Katz went to the White House every year,” he said. “It wasn’t about politics at all. It was just about the idea of going to the White House to interview the president of the United States. It wasn’t about politics. It was about a football game. The biggest game of the year in college football.”
Finebaum admitted he never knew who exactly hit the “kill button” on the Trump interview, but the chance never materialized.
The full conversation between Finebaum and Travis will air Tuesday morning.