Kamala Harris Ally Pitches Interview With ESPN's Paul Finebaum To Appeal To The South
UPDATE: ESPN tells OutKick that an interview between Finebaum and Kamala Harris is "something that it does not plan to explore."
Bakari Sellers is a former Democratic representative in South Carolina. Sellers, a frequent critic of OutKick and Clay Travis, is now focused on trying to advise his longtime ally Kamala Harris on her approach to maximizing her limited appearances with the media.
Speaking to Politico, Sellers encouraged Harris to engage in "non-traditional interviews." He suggested Harris sit down with someone in the world of sports, like SEC radio host Paul Finebaum.
"Sellers wants to tap into the start of college football season by having Harris chit-chat with Paul Finebaum, the broadcaster and author with deep ties to the NCAA’s Southeastern Conference, whose schools overlap with a large swath of politically pivotal states across the South," reports Politico.
Finebaum is arguably the foremost authority on Southern college football. A conversation with him would certainly generate headlines and reach a unique demographic of American voters.
Granted, Harris would have to do the entire interview in her phony but patent Southern accent.
That said, Finebaum is an ESPN employee. Would ESPN allow him to interview Harris?
OutKick contacted Finebaum, ESPN president of content Burge Magnus, and ESPN PR to find out. All three parties either declined to comment or did not respond.
Our guess is that the network would not be interested in Finebaum interviewing the vice president.
As we previously reported, ESPN is not fond of its talents openly supporting Kamala Harris, as so many already have. However, the company is willing to let it happen under the guise of "supporting the first black female as president," thus dismissing the endorsements as more "social than political."
Paul Finebaum is a white guy. Seemingly, ESPN would prefer one of its race-baiting black commentators to sit down with Harris and discuss rAcIsM in America – like Stephen A. Smith, Elle Duncan, or fresh off Instagram Shannon Sharpe.
In fact, don't be surprised if Kamala appears on ESPN to discuss race before the election.
Further, Finebaum is a former newspaper journalist. Regardless of his political leanings – he seems relatively moderate – he wouldn't give either presidential candidate a free ride. Finebaum would hold their feet to the fire and ask the requisite questions.
Kamala Harris is not looking for a hard-hitting interview. Nor is ESPN looking to provide a Democrat one.
Remember, ESPN interviewed Joe Biden in 2021 and Sage Steele, who conducted the interview, told Fox News earlier this year that Disney executives "scripted" the entire interview.
"It was very much ‘This is what you will ask. This is how you will say it. No follow-ups, no follow-ups. Next,'" Steele said. "I was told, ‘You will say every word that we write out, you will not deviate from the script."
She added that "each question was gone over dozens of times by many editors and executives."
OutKick asked ESPN numerous times if the scripted questions were made available to Biden and the White House prior to the interview. ESPN will not say. Given the current administration's history of editing interview questions ahead of time, we are suspicious.
By the way, if ESPN does interview Kamala Harris, expect the interviewer to ask about climate change early in the interview. ESPN golden girl Mina Kimes raised a fit this week that climate change was not featured prominently enough during Tuesday's debate.
"In 20 years, history will not look kindly at the fact that it took 1.5 hours of a debate to (briefly) get to climate change," Kimes posted on X. "They will look back at the issues we prioritized, with great regret."
The hell with the border, crime, fracking, someone trying to murder Donald Trump, genial mutilation of children, the Democrat Party colluding with Big Tech to diminish our free speech rights, and robots taking over – Mina wants to talk about the climate hu$tle.
Who would give Kamala Harris a more friendly interview: ESPN or MSNBC?