I’m curious why Joe Biden isn’t going to be doing the traditional presidential interview during the Super Bowl. According the the White House, executives at Fox Corp flat-out canceled the event.
“The President was looking forward to an interview with Fox Soul to discuss the Super Bowl, the State of the Union, and critical issues impacting the everyday lives of Black Americans,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tweeted Friday. “We’ve been informed that Fox Corp has asked for the interview to be cancelled.”
This contrasts with what Fox News was saying as recently as Tuesday.
“The president is going to be out on the road, taking his message to the road. Every year, traditionally, the network covering the Super Bowl gets an interview with the president of the United States,” said Bret Baier, a top anchor at the network, during its coverage of Biden’s State of the Union address. “We have formally asked for that interview, but we have not received an answer yet, whether they are going to officially do it or not … we’re running out of days.”
Based on press secretary Jean-Pierre’s comment, it sounds like something was lined up with Fox Soul, a Fox Corp enterprise that focuses on “Black culture-fuelled programming.” Its sounds like this was unacceptable to Fox News which probably wanted Bret Baier to get the honor.
Biden did the Super Bowl in 2021 and 2022 when it was aired by NBC and CBS. Donald Trump did the Super Bowl during his presidency, too, but refused to sit down with NBC’s Lester Holt in 2018. It sounds like Biden was looking for a compromise and Fox Corp wasn’t willing to grant it.
It’s probably a dumb tradition, but it’s a sign of the times that we can’t even have the president sit down for a couple of minutes to make small-talk during the Super Bowl without fear of being ambushed. I don’t really blame Trump and Biden for being wary of that outcome, nor do I blame Fox Corp for asking for the same treatment that other networks have traditionally enjoyed.
It’s probably best to just keep politics out of the Super Bowl from here on out. Our country is too pissed off to allow for safe spaces and an effort to unite around a common experience for a couple minutes is just going to prove fruitless.
