President Biden to skip Super Bowl press conference for second consecutive year, citing political fatigue among Americans

CNN
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President Joe Biden will skip a pre-Super Bowl interview for the second year in a row, but aides say it’s part of a larger plan and not a move by the president to avoid answering questions in front of the entire nation. He claims that there is no.

Biden’s advisers told CNN that omitting the interview, which was supposed to air as part of the pregame show rather than during peak viewing hours on CBS, left Americans wondering about the politics of the 2024 campaign. He said he thought it was a strategic decision to give him a break from the 2018 season. Advisers say they are already seeing people expressing fatigue with election news and want to avoid prolonging this.

The decision was made before right-wing media went wild last week about Taylor Swift and her boyfriend, tight end Travis Kelce. This comes after Taylor Swift and the Kansas City Chiefs advanced to the Super Bowl against the San Francisco 49ers. MAGA media members are spreading conspiracy theories about the pop superstar, alleging that she is part of a massive psy-op plan hatched by the NFL and Democrats to tip the 2024 presidential election in Biden’s favor. We are spreading the idea that

Pregame presidential interviews are a relatively new tradition, dating back to President Barack Obama’s first year in office, and even Donald Trump himself once skipped it. But for Mr. Biden, who has complained for months in public and in conversations with senior advisers that the message touting his accomplishments hasn’t been getting through to the public, the decision marks an important departure from that. It means ignoring an audience of millions, including many who would not have supported it otherwise. Pay attention to the president’s politics.

It’s also the latest example of Biden refusing a high-profile interview that drew a large audience. This is a constant source of frustration for the White House press corps, but it also raises questions about whether the president has any intention of doing so. Biden advisers, by contrast, have fielded multiple questions from reporters each week as the president crosses the South Lawn of the White House to board Marine One, as well as the presidential campaign in the South on Saturday. He often points out that he frequently gives interviews, like the one he did on local radio last week. Carolina Democratic primary.

Mr. Biden’s advisers said there were no concerns about insulating the president and it was not part of the decision about the meeting.

On Saturday, Biden insisted there was more to the 2024 campaign than normal politics, saying in remarks at his campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware: This is more of a mission. For the sake of the country, we cannot, cannot, cannot lose this campaign. ”

“I think everyone knows that, and I think people are starting to realize that,” Biden added.

Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democratic leaders have argued that the president’s consistently low poll numbers are largely due to Americans not knowing enough about the president and his record. They argue that more effort is needed to do so.

But not next Sunday.

“We hope the viewers enjoyed what they were watching, the game,” White House communications director Ben LaBolt told CNN.

Biden attended a Super Bowl press conference shortly after taking office in 2021, but his campaign did not begin this season as he regards football as a sacred time. Biden’s ads touting his success in improving the economy aired on local and national TV during the Chiefs-Detroit Lions season opener in September and during the Lions-Green Bay Packers game on Thanksgiving. More advertisements were aired. At the time, the campaign argued it was an opportunity to appeal to large crowds in those two battleground states.

In years past, Super Bowl presidential interviews have often sparked several days of news coverage. But President Biden has always been skeptical about the value of doing so, in part because he fears it could become an unwanted distraction. Biden’s last major interview was on comedian Conan O’Brien’s podcast recorded at the White House in December.