Report: Donald Trump not expected to grant ESPN an interview during title game

Ben Rohrbach
·Senior NBA writer

While President Donald Trump is expected to attend Monday night’s College Football Playoff Championship game, it is “unlikely” he will grant an interview to ESPN, per the Chicago Tribune.

ESPN senior vice president for events and studio programs Stephanie Druley told the paper that the network has been in contact with the White House, but she did not “get the sense” the president would speak to the network’s broadcasting crew during Monday’s Alabama-Georgia game in Atlanta.

However, Trump is scheduled to appear on the Alabama radio broadcast with play-by-play announcer Eli Gold and color commentator Phil Savage during the game, according to The Tuscaloosa News.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders called for ESPN to fire “SportsCenter” anchor Jemele Hill this past September, when Hill called the president “a white supremacist” on Twitter. Trump, meanwhile, demanded an apology from the network and called “its politics” into question.

Trump won Georgia by a five percent margin and Alabama by 28 percent in the 2016 election. Alabama was also the site of the rally in which Trump labeled football players who protest racial inequality during the national anthem as “sons of bitches” and criticized the NFL for heavily policing hard hits.

Several protests of the president are planned both inside and outside Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Monday night, according to the Associated Press. Members of Refuse Fascism ATL plan to “take a knee” outside of CNN’s world headquarters near the stadium, and the NAACP is reportedly urging attendees to wear white as a response to the “snowflake” insult directed at Trump opponents by his supporters.

“We’re going to make a snowflake turn into a mighty blizzard inside of Mercedes-Benz Stadium when Mr. Trump comes,” Atlanta NAACP vice president Gerald Griggs said at a news conference, via the AP.

While we may not get to see Trump react to the title game spectacle during the ESPN broadcast, it will be interesting to hear his thoughts and what questions he faces on the Alabama radio broadcast. Something tells me we may hear his views on the experience on a certain social media outlet as well.

President Donald Trump welcomed Clemson’s national title-winning football team to the White House in June. (AP)
President Donald Trump welcomed Clemson’s national title-winning football team to the White House in June. (AP)

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Ben Rohrbach is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at rohrbach_ben@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!