ESPN star in the hot seat as Senate campaign rumors swirl: 'Trump-hating RINO'
Legendary college football broadcaster Paul Finebaum is taking heat for allegedly being a "Trump-hating" weak Republican amid widespread rumors that he is planning a run for the U.S. Senate in...
By Fox News · Fox News
Legendary college football broadcaster Paul Finebaum is taking heat for allegedly being a "Trump-hating" weak Republican amid widespread rumors that he is planning a run for the U.S. Senate in Alabama . The 70-year-old ESPN host, best known as the foremost authority on SEC football, has not yet announced an official run. However, he has revealed he is intrigued by the idea of such a run and admitted in an interview with OutKick to "thinking about it constantly." For some Republican insiders in Alabama, this has been sufficient to start raising alarms about why they believe Finebaum would be a poor choice for a Senate candidate. Dale Jackson, a prominent Alabama radio politics talk show host, told Fox News Digital that though "Finebaum is a radio legend and a fixture in the South … nobody knows what he believes." TOMMY TUBERVILLE PRAISES PAUL FINEBAUM AS ANALYST CONSIDERS SENATE RUN AFTER CHARLIE KIRK ASSASSINATION "The guy is a legend," Jackson continued. "[But] I've been doing radio and talk radio for almost 20 years in Alabama, and I couldn't tell you what Paul Finebaum knows or believes about anything political." "The minute he starts talking about what he believes. It's going to be picked apart, and I don't know if he's necessarily ready for what that means," said Jackson. Finebaum’s record on political stances is mixed. In 2016, he stated, "this country is not oppressing black people," but then later apologized on ESPN, saying his "eyes are wider open," according to RealClearPolitics . In 2017, he remarked that President Donald Trump "does behave like a child," per FanBuzz . In 2020, Finebaum went on the record praising a video in which Nick Saban encouraged COVID-19 social distancing and masking, according to 247Sports . He also spoke favorably of Saban's decision to lead an athletes’ social justice march in which many players wore Black Lives Matter shirts, according to local outlet Bham Now . Finebaum told the outlet that "Nick Saban leading that march was…