Early Monday, the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs will compete in the Super Bowl. Before the biggest NFL game of the year, there is a posse between the ultra-conservative US network Fox and US President Joe Biden. It’s about the traditional interview beforehand.
The posse surrounding the traditional presidential interview before the Super Bowl is over. US broadcaster Fox will not conduct an interview with President Joe Biden. This was confirmed by the White House after a lengthy back and forth between the President and the ultra-conservative broadcaster. Statements from both sides preceded the final cancellation. These caused confusion. Biden’s spokeswoman, Karine Jean-Pierre, only said on Twitter that the White House had “been informed that Fox Corp. asked to cancel the interview.” The US network disagreed a few hours later and reported that they were looking forward to “interviewing the President on Super Bowl Sunday”. A reporter team from the TV station is already on its way from Los Angeles to Washington to conduct the conversation there.
According to another statement from the White House, this will not happen. “As previously communicated, we arranged for an interview with Fox sports anchors Mike Hill and Vivica A. Fox and the President prior to the Super Bowl, but Fox Corp. canceled the interview,” a White House spokesman told the US broadcaster CNN with. “Fox released a statement saying it would reschedule the interview, but that’s not true.”
Typically, the interviews are taped the Friday before the Super Bowl and then aired before the NFL final. Fox News, the network’s news channel, has reportedly been trying to get an interview with Joe Biden for weeks, CNN reports, but the White House has declined. Instead, the administration tried to place the interview on another channel of the group, Fox Soul. During his current tenure, Biden has yet to conduct a single one-on-one interview with Fox News. He is regularly attacked by the broadcaster and put in a bad light. The relationship can confidently be described as non-existent.
The presidential interviews in the run-up to the Super Bowl with the broadcasting station have a long tradition in the USA. Biden has spoken to broadcasters CBS and NBC in recent years. But there is already a precedent in recent US history for the failure of an interview. In 2018, then-President Donald Trump declined an interview with NBC host Lester Holt. The Republican was and is known for his contempt for the press, which he repeatedly accused of lying and slander.
Biden’s relationship with Fox, a network close to Trump, is heavily strained. He had previously clashed with Fox Capital correspondent Peter Doocy. He called him a “stupid son of a bitch” and later apologized to the journalist in a telephone call for this blunder.
