'You will not deviate': Sage Steele said her entire 2021 ESPN interview with Biden was 'scripted'

Former ESPN host Sage Steele revealed in a recent interview that her 2021 interview with Joe Biden was "scripted" by network executives and that she was ordered "not to deviate" from it, including asking follow-up questions.

"This was about two months after he took office," Steele recounted to Fox News. "That was an interesting experience in its own right because it was so structured and I was told 'you will say every word that we write out, you will not deviate from the script.'"

"To the word. Every single question was scripted, gone over dozens of times by many editors and executives. Absolutely. I was on script and was told not to deviate," she added.

"It was very much ‘This is what you will ask. This is how you will say it. No follow-ups, no follow-ups. Next.’"

She later added, "I knew that this was a lot bigger than just the wonderful editors that I worked with. This went up to the fourth floors," where the "bosses, the top executives and decision-makers are, the president of our company, the CEO, where they all work."

Many of the March 2021 questions centered around sports leagues returning to normal one year into the pandemic as well as athletes and fans who were hesitant to get the vaccine. During the interview, Biden expressed support for the MLB’s All-Star game boycott of Atlanta following Georgia's passage of an election reform law.

Steele left ESPN in August 2023 and now hosts the Sage Steele Show podcast in Bill Maher's Club Random Studios.