Pat McAfee reveals he turned down Donald Trump, Kamala Harris interviews
As a popular sports-talk show host with a massive platform on ESPN, Pat McAfee has occasionally expressed opinions that would be of interest to political conservatives or liberals. It's not always clear in those moments whether he is merely reacting to a trending topic, or speaking from a broader worldview wherein sports sometimes intersects with public policy.
In August, McAfee waded into the echo chamber of the Imane Khelif boxing controversy at the Paris Olympics. Compare his tepid take on Day 1 to his follow-up remarks the next day:
We're all very confused by what's going on in Women's Boxing..
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) August 1, 2024
We hope that the people who are much smarter than us can figure this out #PMSLive pic.twitter.com/INz9O3Q7Zu
"We are striving to unify everybody, legitimately, because that's what we feel like sports are. But also every once in a while, we gotta say, oh whoa whoa whoa."
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) August 2, 2024
Pat McAfee appeared to follow up on his comments about the Imane Khelif controversy today near the end of his show: pic.twitter.com/nmPfhukrSq
"We are striving to unify everybody, legitimately, because that's what we feel like sports are," McAfee said on Aug. 2 — ostensibly in response to the response of his brush with a political hot topic.
Monday, McAfee put his money where his mouth is.
On the same day Bill Belichick and Jim Gray hosted Donald Trump on their "Let's Go!" podcast on SiriusXM, McAfee revealed he had declined requests from both Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris to appear on his show.
"One day before an election, interviewing a president, you’re cut out for it, I’m not,” McAfee told Belichick. “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.'”
"We interviewed Donald Trump on Let's Go..
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) November 4, 2024
I know we invited both candidates on and it was a lot of fun" ~ Bill Belichick #PMSLive pic.twitter.com/ta53gmHSO6
The chance to host both presidential candidates on McAfee's platform almost certainly would have been a ratings boost. It also would have been divisive, leaving hard-line partisans upset with McAfee for platforming a political opponent, and leaving neutral observers wondering what happened to sports as a safe harbor from politics.
Ultimately McAfee chose to unify rather than divide.
If McAfee holds any broad public-policy worldviews, the eve of a presidential election did not strike him as the right time to air them out with the major parties' nominees. Either McAfee simply isn't that politically astute, or he and his team of co-hosts and producers did not feel they host a show featuring Trump and Harris and still maintain an ethos of unity.
Either way, kudos to McAfee for recognizing his own shortcomings, or the shortcomings of his format, in a moment that demanded more than they could offer.
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