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ESPN star Paul Finebaum said he was finalizing a potential interview with President Donald Trump in 2019 before the network ultimately axed it before he got to sit down with him.
Finebaum spoke to OutKick founder Clay Travis and opened up on several topics, including his attempt to get to interview Trump for his ESPN show. Trump was set to appear at the LSU and Alabama game that fall and Finebaum said he wanted to go above and beyond.
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ESPN announcer Paul Finebaum before the 2024 SEC Championship game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Dec. 7, 2024. (Brett Davis/Imagn Images)
“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 wanana get Trump?’ I said, yeah!
“I was going ‘Get Up’ and ‘First Take’ in New York two days a week. I said I’m going to be in New York on Wednesday. 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, ‘Let me run it down the flagpole.’ He texted me back saying, ‘Looking good.’
“I called my boss and they killed it.”
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President Donald Trump and his wife Melania were in the house at Bryant-Denny Stadium to watch the Alabama vs. LSU game Saturday, Nov. 9, 2019. (Staff Photo/Gary Cosby Jr.)
Finebaum told Travis he was “devastated” that the interview was nixed at the last second. He said he was told they weren’t “allowed to mix politics with sports.”
The longtime college football analyst suggested he was caught off guard given that college basketball analyst Andy Katz picked the NCAA basketball tournament with President Barack Obama.
“I think the answer’s pretty evident that Andy Katz went to the White House every year (for the bracket). It was a turning point,” Finebaum 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.
“I never exactly knew where the ‘kill button’ came from but it didn’t happen.”
President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the State Dining Room of the White House, Monday, Sept. 29, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
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ESPN declined to comment.
The full conversation between Finebaum and Travis will air on Tuesday morning.
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