Good For Pat McAfee In Turning Down Interview Opportunities With Kamala, Trump

ESPN told OutKick during the summer it would not host any interviews with the two candidates running for president, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. But Pat McAfee, one of the network's biggest stars, retained full editorial control over his daily show after signing a licensing agreement with the company in 2022 and was thus able to interview both Trump and Harris on ESPN airwaves. And both campaigns approached him to do so. 

However, McAfee declined.

"One day before an election, interviewing a president, you’re cut out for it, I’m not," McAfee told Bill Belichick, who interviewed Trump on SiriusXM Monday. "We’ve had both political parties reach out about their candidates coming on. And I clearly said, ‘We’re not the ones that should be asking these things.'"

In addition to ESPN, McAfee's program airs live on YouTube, where his channel has nearly 2.7 million subscribers. McAfee would've allowed both candidates to reach a unique audience of young males, of which only about half of the demographic votes.

So, if a candidate is going to appear on a sports show, "The Pat McAfee Show" is the one to choose.

But we actually credit McAfee for telling both candidates no. A host who is not well-read about the current state of politics (McAfee admits he is not) will most likely be taken advantage of by the candidate.

Even Dan Le Batard, a left-wing sports podcaster, admitted that Harris' running mate Tim Walz had "used" him for an interview during the final stages of the campaign. 

"Walz used us as his agenda to appear incredibly likable, at least because 10 minutes of the questions were silliness," Le Batard confessed.

As did Harris' husband Doug Emhoff, who appeared on Le Batard's show last month to talk about "love." "Tell me what you've learned about love from your wife," Le Batard told Emhoff, beginning the interview.

Cringe.

McAfee didn't want to be used. He didn't want to help normalize either political candidate.

And saying no is not always easy. Not only is the opportunity to interview a presidential candidate (even one as unworthy as Kamala) an honor, but their campaigns are notoriously aggressive.

"Call Her Daddy," host Alex Cooper told the Hollywood Reporter in October that she was reluctant to interview the vice president and wanted to keep her show politically natural. However, the Harris campaign kept prying.

"Politics is something I’ve been very in-between on, and I’m aware people come to my show for reprieve and relief from the day-to-day, and I don’t want to use my platform as a campaign tool," Cooper says. "[But] her team had reached out multiple times to make it happen, and it finally felt like the time was right. I was looking forward to a conversation surrounding women’s rights."

Put simply, staying out of politics as a public figure is often more challenging than staying politically ambiguous. Look at how USA Today chastised Patrick Mahomes and Caitlin Clark for not endorsing a candidate, meaning Harris. See, there is a great incentive to come out in support of Democrats, especially in the media.

McAfee could have silenced most of his critics and become a favorite within the Sports Media Cool Kids Club had he given Harris a softball interview and/or challenged Trump. Had he, you'd never see another mean word written about him by the New York Times or on Black Twitter. 

Most pundits would've caved and used the opportunity to mend the fences with the far-left sports media hall monitors.

Pat McAfee didn't. Good for him.