A former NFL reporter has said she was “so shocked” after a Senate candidate backed by President Donald Trump called her a “drama queen” on a 2023 podcast about her miscarriage.
Lisa Guerrero, an ABC “Monday Night Football” sideline reporter in 2003, spoke to the Washington Post for a profile of Michele Tafoya, Minnesota’s Republican Senate nominee, published Wednesday.
Tafoya faces Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan (D-MN) next week in a race that tightened sharply in October, the Post reported.
“I was so shocked at another woman — and a woman who had once held the job I did, who knew about the pressures of having 40 million people see your work live,” Guerrero told the Post. “I today cannot believe it, and I’m hurt by it.”
Guerrero said she had kept the miscarriage private because she felt traumatized and humiliated. She added that Tafoya, whom she had never met, never contacted her, the Post reported. Tafoya’s campaign did not respond to the Post.
In January 2023, a day after Guerrero revealed in a memoir excerpt published by People that she had a miscarriage while working a 2003 game, Tafoya devoted a podcast episode to disputing Guerrero’s account.
“We worked in exactly the same era,” Tafoya said, noting she followed Guerrero onto the same “Monday Night Football” crew in 2004. “I’ve had multiple miscarriages.”
Yet Tafoya told listeners, “I have my hesitation about was this truly a devastating miscarriage.” She held up her own losses as the measure of Guerrero’s, saying, “Trust me when I tell you, my best friends knew.”
“From what I understand from very, very good sources, Lisa Guerrero was an attention seeking drama queen during her tenure on ‘Monday Night Football,’” Tafoya said.
She also questioned Guerrero’s ambitions. “I contend she was not tough enough if that’s what she really wanted to be,” Tafoya said of Guerrero’s goal of becoming “the Barbara Walters of sports.” After reading aloud Guerrero’s account of radio hosts “talking about my breasts and sexual acts,” she said, “Again, this is what you sign up for.”
The remarks follow Tafoya into a race where she trails among women. Flanagan led Tafoya among women 48% to 36% in an early October Morning Consult poll for The Daily Agenda, which found 17% of women undecided.
Tafoya calls herself “a pro-choice Republican” in a campaign ad, MPR News reported. At their Oct. 16 debate, a moderator asked what “reasonable access” to abortion meant. She replied, “Reasonable access is reasonable access!”. Earlier this year, she said on a conservative radio show, “I’m in line with President Trump on this,” Bring Me The News reported.
Tafoya welcomed Trump’s support before the primary, then downplayed it as pressure mounted in the general election. She urged Trump not to run again in 2022, then said on Fox News in 2025, “Clearly, I was wrong,”.
Trump said last week he had told aides to set up one or two Minnesota campaign stops. None have been announced, and Tafoya has declined to say whether she wants him there.