Biden makes baffling decision to SKIP Super Bowl interview for second year in a row: President, 81, misses out on reaching millions of Americans in an election year as he continues to dodge TV interviews
President Joe Biden has decided to skip the traditional sit-down interview ahead of Sunday’s Super Bowl.
The 81-year-old president, who faces a tough re-election battle, is ignoring an interview with CBS, the network that will air this year’s big game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers.
Variety reported for the first time about the White House decision, with communications director Ben LaBolt telling the network, “We hope viewers enjoy watching what they tuned in to: the game,” without further explanation.
This is the second year in a row that Biden has skipped the interview.
Last year, the decision was attributed to conservative-leaning Fox News making the request while Fox was broadcasting the game.
President Joe Biden will not sit down for an interview to air ahead of Sunday’s Super Bowl, which used to be a presidential tradition. He photographed the headliner on Sunday during a campaign rally in Las Vegas, where the Super Bowl will be played a week later
President Joe Biden participated in the interviews in 2021 and 2022. In 2021, he sat down with CBS’ Norah O’Donnell. CBS is rebroadcasting the Super Bowl, but the White House still rejected the sit-down
In 2021 and 2022, Biden participated in the Q&As, first with CBS’s Norah O’Donnell and then NBC’s Lester Holt.
Former President Donald Trump also skipped a pre-game interview, though he spent his first months in office battling the NFL over some players’ decision to kneel during the playing of the national anthem in protest of racial inequality.
Now that he is running for the White House again, Trump indicated he would participate and do the interview again.
βCrooked Joe Biden just announced he won’t do the big Super Bowl interview. Great decision, he can’t put two sentences together,” Trump said on Truth Social Monday. βI WOULD BE HAPPY TO REPLACE HIM β would be ‘RATINGS GOLD,’β the ex-president and 2024 hopeful said.
Overall, Biden has shunned media attention, opting to take questions from reporters in less formal settings β such as when he leaves the White House to board Marine One on the South Lawn.
He did not participate in a year-end press conference in 2023 β and rarely sits down for television or print interviews.
With polls slow and the Republican primaries nearing an end, with former President Donald Trump the likely GOP nominee, some Democrats worry that playing it safe won’t be enough for Biden.
Former President Donald Trump responded to President Joe Biden’s decision to skip the Super Bowl interview by saying it was a “great decision” because “he can’t put two sentences together,” and volunteered to to take Biden’s place.
President Joe Biden (right) spoke with NBC’s Lester Holt (left) for a February 2022 interview, part of which aired before the Super Bowl that year. Biden’s criticism of the Super Bowl interview last year was attributed to Fox News asking the question
βHe’s probably trying to avoid tough questions about Gaza and the border, but I think he’s making a mistake,β a Democratic strategist, who declined to be named, told DailyMail.com.
“This should be an opportunity for him to attack Republicans in the House of Representatives for blocking aid to Israel and reaching a bipartisan immigration deal,” the source said. “He has to play offensively, because he can no longer campaign from the basement.”
And Biden may have an even bigger voting bloc to play to this year by appearing on the pre-game show.
While there is always high interest in the Super Bowl, this year’s game will also attract legions of ‘Swifties’ as Taylor Swift’s boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, will be on the field, and she is expected to she will be present.
Swift jumped into politics in 2018, endorsing Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s Democratic opponent, Phil Bredesen in Tennessee.
She publicly supported Biden in 2020.
Trump allies are already worried about her endorsing Biden in 2024 now that Swift has achieved mega-stardom.
Rolling Stone reported this last week that MAGA world is preparing a ‘holy war’ against the pop star.
Fox News host Jesse Watters claimed last month that Swift was a “front for a secret political agenda.”
He said on his primetime show that “about four years ago, the Pentagon’s phychological operations division came into existence, making Taylor Swift an asset.”
Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh responded to the wild claim, saying in a statement: “As far as this conspiracy theory is concerned, we are going to shake it off.”
Former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy β who dropped out of the race and endorsed Trump β suggested in late January on X that the Super Bowl will be rigged in the Chiefs’ favor to aid Biden’s reelection efforts.
βI wonder who’s going to win the Super Bowl next month. And I wonder if there will be a big presidential endorsement this fall from an artificial culturally supported bunch,β Ramaswamy mused. “Just some wild speculation here, let’s see how it ages over the next eight months.”