With just two weeks to go until the 2024 election, podcast appearances for Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have really ramped up.
But while both candidates have largely stuck to friendly formats — All the Smoke and Call Her Daddy for Harris; Bussin’ With the Boys and The Undertaker’s podcast for Trump — it appears that one them actually did attempt to cross party lines.
On a recent episode of The Unnamed Show, Dave Portnoy revealed he had been presented with the opportunity to interview Harris. But the Barstool Sports owner — who has been a vocal supporter of Trump’s over the years — said he turned down the interview, citing concerns he wouldn’t be able to fact-check the candidate in real time.
“They reached out, which who knows if they actually researched it,” Portnoy said. “She asked to do BFFs, JackMac and [Pardon My Take]. PMT said no, I said no on behalf of BFFs.
“Who knows if they would’ve regrouped and been like, ‘No.’ First of all, I don’t think I’d want to do it. Second of all, if I were going to do it, I wouldn’t do it with our people, because my opinion on politics are not theirs. My issue with doing Trump or Kamala is if you’re asking people things and they’re answering them and you don’t know if the answers are true or not and you don’t have enough information to push back and you just kind of accept it if you’re doing it — that, I don’t like… I’m just not deep enough and you don’t know what to believe, so you don’t want to just be lied to and not have ammunition. So I don’t know if I would do it. There are things I would love to hear her answer.”
While Portnoy’s hesitations are understandable, he notably didn’t take them same approach when given the opportunity to interview Trump ahead of the 2020 election, which served as the source of controversy at Barstool headquarters. Perhaps that proved to be a learning experience for the Barstool Sports founder. Or maybe the risk of being viewed as a Harris ally simply wasn’t worth the potential reward such an interview could result in.
In any event, it’s certainly interesting to see which shows — especially in the sports world — the Harris campaign is trying to get on in the final weeks leading up to the election. And it’s equally interesting to see how those shows are responding and what it says about their own overall strategies regarding politics.
About Ben Axelrod
Ben Axelrod is a veteran of the sports media landscape, having most recently worked for NBC's Cleveland affiliate, WKYC. Prior to his time in Cleveland, he covered Ohio State football and the Big Ten for outlets including Cox Media Group, Bleacher Report, Scout and Rivals.