Paul Finebaum says ESPN did, indeed, sideline him after an interview with OutKick last year.

Last September, Finebaum told Clay Travis during a podcast that he was considering leaving ESPN to run for U.S. Senate in Alabama as a Republican, revealing that he had also voted for President Donald Trump in 2024. A week later, Travis reported that ESPN had removed Finebaum from his scheduled television appearances because of the interview.

"Per sources: Disney/ESPN has removed @finebaum from appearing on @ESPN since his @outkick interview expressing interest in running as a Republican for senate in Alabama. ESPN has canceled all network appearances on all shows, including some that have occurred for a decade plus," Travis posted on X.

An ESPN public relations executive disputed the report, despite the obvious fact that Finebaum had disappeared from his usual ESPN television appearances, even following a weekend of major college football upsets.

"This is not true at all. The below is TOTALLY FALSE," ESPN's Bill Hofheimer wrote above Travis' report.

Finebaum sided with Travis' version of events this week.

"Of course, I was sidelined," Finebaum told Awful Announcing when asked about the story. "I’d done the same shows every day for 13 years, and the next thing you know, I’m not on there after a college football weekend."

OutKick asked ESPN for comment Thursday following Finebaum's remarks. The network sent the following statement:

"As we stated last year, Finebaum was never banned."

The dispute is largely a matter of semantics. Finebaum was not booked for his regular appearances on shows like SportsCenter and Get Up the week after his interview with OutKick. He did, however, continue hosting his eponymous show on SEC Network and ESPN Radio. He remained on some ESPN platforms.

The network can also claim it simply chose not to book him for certain television appearances and tried out other personalities in case Finebaum ultimately left the company to run for office. In fact, that is what we hear ESPN told people who inquired at the time.

As a matter of technicality, ESPN did not "ban" Finebaum. However, what is technically true is not always the same as what is obvious.

What appears obvious is that ESPN responded to Finebaum's interview by not booking him on the shows he has spent the past decade appearing on during the college football season.

Further, it would have been understandable for ESPN to take issue with Finebaum making national news about a potential political campaign while still employed by the company. We wouldn't have faulted ESPN for deciding not to use Finebaum on television while he was publicly flirting with a run for office, which he ultimately decided against.

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The issue is the double standard.

Stephen A. Smith has spent years publicly discussing the possibility of running for president as a Democrat. ESPN did not respond by removing him from his regular television appearances or publicly preparing replacements in case he left the company to seek office.

That contrast makes ESPN's handling of Finebaum harder to dismiss as ordinary programming rotation.

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Finally, there is the broader question of how much longer Finebaum will remain at ESPN.

Nearly every football season seems to bring another story about Finebaum potentially leaving the network, whether for political office or a media competitor. At some point, that recurring uncertainty begins to say something about the partnership.

ESPN host Stephen A. Smith defended his trip to the White House to meet with President Donald Trump during an episode of "The View" Wednesday, telling the co-hosts he wouldn't apologize for sitting down with the president.

Co-host Sunny Hostin asked Smith, "He has this history of racial bias that is so clear. Did you think meeting with him, that you got anywhere?"

"I don't know. We'll find out, but he’s the president of the United States, and I’ll be damned if I’m not going to try," he said. "And the reality is I’m just speaking from a constitutional perspective in that regard. 

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"And it points to a bigger issue. There are so many people that have this mentality, ‘Why even waste time talking to him?’ Whether you like him or not, he’s the president of the United States of America. He’s not going away until 2028. At least. He’s not going away."

Smith met with Trump, comedian Bill Maher and Kid Rock at the White House Oct. 15.

Hostin raised the possibility that Trump could be impeached after the midterm elections, but Smith rejected the idea. 

"I think you’re going to have a situation where the Republicans are going to maintain the Senate," Smith said. "They’ll probably lose the House. So, you’ll get folks to impeach him, but then they’ll step in and save him, and it will be an ongoing continuous thing. 

"And don’t get me started with that because I get disgusted with all that pomp and circumstance. I’m so sick and tired of us acting like that’s going to do something. He’s not going away until 2028.

"You’re going to have to deal with him," he continued. "And when it comes to getting things done, I’m all about exhausting every means and every measure to try to do what’s in the best interest of our community. I’m not apologizing for that to anybody."

The co-hosts told Smith they had invited Trump onto the show, but, on Tuesday, co-host Ana Navarro said there was "no way in hell" she would meet with the president.

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"It’s easy for the cast of ‘The View’ to attack people for meeting with President Trump or crow about how they would never take a meeting with him," Nicholas Fondacaro, associate editor of the Media Research Center's NewsBusters, told Fox News Digital in a statement about the exchange. 

"One, they’ll never be asked. Two, they’re not counted on by anyone to be a champion of their cause.

"It’s clear that ‘The View’ truly believe him to be the bumbling racist caricature that they and the rest of the liberal media paint him to be to their viewers," he continued. "They were visibly shocked to learn that Trump seemed to hear him out and called him a few days later to hear his argument again before he met with others about the HBCUs issue."

Navarro also pressed Smith on the meeting and questioned whether he pushed back on the president.

The ESPN host said he pressed Trump several times regarding the war in Iran and added that Maher grilled the president during the meeting as well.

"The only other thing I would add is I’m kind of disappointed that you’re asking whether or not I pushed back because that shows me that you’re not watching my SiriusXM show enough because I push back on Trump all the time," Smith said.

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Kid Rock spoke on "Fox & Friends" about the meeting Friday.

"Last night, I'm having dinner at the White House with the president, Bill Maher and Stephen A. Smith. We all agreed socialism and communism has no place to have a foothold in our government," he said, before referring to Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed.

Asked how the dinner went, Kid Rock said the group had a great conversation.

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"It was epic," he said. "And the thing that was the greatest — there's so many points, I could do an hour on it — is that, you know, two Democrats, two Republicans sit down, break bread, have laughs, talk about, have tough conversations on a lot of the issues."