Nikki Schwab, US senior political reporter
17:17 05 2024, updated 17:33 05 2024
- President Joe Biden will not participate in a roundtable discussion with CBS News that was supposed to air ahead of Sunday’s Super Bowl.
- This is the second year in a row that Biden has flouted this tradition, although last year’s interview was supposed to be with right-wing Fox News.
- “We hope our viewers enjoyed what they saw, which is the game,” White House communications director Ben LaBolt told Variety, which broke the news.
President Joe Biden has decided to skip the traditional sit-down interview ahead of Sunday’s Super Bowl.
The 81-year-old president, who is facing a tough re-election battle, is ignoring an interview with CBS, which will broadcast this year’s big game between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers.
Variety was first to report on the White House’s decision, with public relations director Ben LaBolt saying, “We hope our viewers enjoy the fight, which is what they’re looking forward to,” and provided no further explanation. There wasn’t.
This is the second year in a row that Biden has skipped a press conference.
The decision last year was said to be the result of a request made by conservative-leaning Fox News while Fox was broadcasting the game.
In 2021-2022, Biden participated in a Q&A session first with CBS’s Norah O’Donnell and then with NBC’s Lester Holt.
Former President Donald Trump also skipped pregame interviews, but spent his first months in office fighting with the NFL over the decision of some players to kneel during the national anthem in protest of racial injustice. .
Trump, who is once again a candidate for the White House, has expressed his intention to have the ball once again and accept interviews.
“Crooked Joe Biden just announced he won’t be doing a big Super Bowl interview. Great decision, he can’t put two sentences together,” President Trump said on Monday’s Truth Social. I commented on it. “I will be happy to serve as his successor. I hope he will give me a ‘gold medal’ rating!” said the former president, who is expected to run in 2024.
Biden has generally avoided the media, choosing to answer questions from reporters in less formal settings, such as when leaving the White House to board Marine One on the South Lawn.
He did not participate in year-end press conferences in 2023 and rarely sat down for television or print interviews.
With polls slumping, the Republican primaries over, and former President Donald Trump likely to become the Republican nominee, some Democrats worry that it won’t be enough for Biden to play it safe. ing.
“He’s probably trying to avoid tough questions about Gaza and the border, but I think he’s making a mistake,” one Democratic strategist told DailyMail.com on condition of anonymity.
“This should be an opportunity to criticize House Republicans who blocked aid to Israel and undermined a bipartisan immigration deal,” the source added. “He needs to play offensively because he can’t campaign from his basement again.”
And Biden could potentially further expand his voting bloc this year by appearing on the pregame show.
There’s always a lot of interest in the Super Bowl, but this year’s game will also feature Taylor Swift’s boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, so there will be a lot of Swifties. She is expected to gather and watch the game.
Swift entered politics in 2018, supporting Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s Democratic opponent Phil Bredesen in Tennessee.
She publicly supported Biden in 2020.
Now that Swift has risen to stardom, Trump’s allies are already worried about her supporting Biden in 2024.
Rolling Stone magazine reported last week that the MAGA world is preparing for a “crusade” against pop stars.
Fox News host Jesse Watters said last month that Swift was “a front for a secret political agenda.”
“About four years ago, the Pentagon’s Physiological Operations Command came to light trying to turn Taylor Swift into an asset,” he said on his prime-time show.
Defense Department spokeswoman Sabrina Singh responded to the wild claims in a statement, saying, “As far as this conspiracy theory goes, we will dispel it.”
Former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswami, who withdrew from the race and supported Trump, told X in late January that the Super Bowl would be rigged in favor of the Chiefs to help Biden’s re-election bid. surfaced.
“Who will win next month’s Super Bowl? And will there be massive presidential support from artificially culturally supported couples this fall?” Ramaswamy mused. “It’s a bit of wild speculation here, but let’s see how it ages over the next eight months.”