President Joe Biden will sit down with Fox Soul, the Fox-owned streaming service aimed at black viewers, for an interview on Super Bowl Sunday, after the White House announced the Fox company had canceled It.
‘After the White House contacted FOX Soul on Thursday night, there was some initial confusion. Fox Soul looks forward to interviewing the president for Super Bowl Sunday,’ a Fox Corp spokesperson told DailyMail.com.
Fox is broadcasting the big game Sunday — between the Kansas City Captains and the Philadelphia Eagles — and so if the president wants to join the Super Bowl interview tradition that began during President George’s tenure W. Bush, then he had to talk to one of the Fox interviewers.
After days of being apprehensive about the interview, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tweeted on Friday that President Joe Biden had agreed to do an interview – with Fox Soul, not Fox News Channel – but the Fox company arranged it.
‘The President is looking forward to an interview with Fox Soul to discuss the Super Bowl, the State of the Union, and key issues affecting the daily lives of black Americans. We have been informed that Fox Corp has requested to cancel the interview,’ Jean-Pierre wrote.
The White House is now claiming that President Joe Biden wants to sit down at the Super Bowl with Fox Soul, the Fox-owned streaming service for black viewers, but Fox’s corporate owners have canceled it.
Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Friday that the president had planned to do an interview with Fox Soul, but the Fox company canceled it.
Biden memorably referred to Fox News Channel White House reporter Peter Doocy as ‘ab***h’s stupid son’ at an event in January 2022, a comment that reached the hot mic of president
Hours later, Fox Corp released a statement saying the meeting had begun.
It’s no surprise that Biden would choose the streaming service over the cable news giant, as the president has previously received got in there with White House reporter Peter Doocy, calling him ‘ab***h’s stupid son at an event last January.
After the insult was caught on the hot mic, Biden called Doocy to apologize.
Jean-Pierre did not say what was going on in the interview when asked about it aboard Air Force One on both Wednesday and Thursday.
‘I just don’t have anything to share. We literally just finished the State of the Union Address, so I don’t have anything to share on… this Sunday,” she said Wednesday.
When asked again on Thursday, she said she had ‘nothing to preview on Sunday’.
Jean-Pierre was then asked why Biden passed up the opportunity to appear in front of such a large audience.
‘I hear – I hear the question. I just don’t have anything to preview for you on Sunday,’ replied the press secretary.
She never mentioned that the White House’s preference is to sit down with someone from Fox Soul.
During Fox News Channel’s State of the Union on Tuesday night, host Bret Baier confirmed that the network had asked the White House for Biden to sit down.
“We’ve officially requested that interview, but we haven’t received an answer yet, whether or not they’ll officially do it,” Baier said. ‘We’re running out of days.’
Baier and Fox News Sunday host Shannon Bream are being considered by the network to do the Biden interview, a source told Variety.
In 2004, former President George W. Bush (right) gave a one-off interview from the Snowy White House Rose Garden with CBS’s Jim Nantz (left) before the Super Bowl
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden are seen in a jumbotron doing a pre-Super Bowl interview in February 2021, just weeks after he took office
Former President Donald Trump skipped the Super Bowl sit-down match when it had an unfavorable network.
For Trump, this means host of NBC’s Lester Holt and NBC Nightly News in 2018.
In the run-up to that Super Bowl, Trump criticized NFL players for kneeling during the national anthem, a protest against institutionalized racism.
In 2004, Bush 43 did a one-off interview from the Snowy White House Rose Garden with CBS’ Jim Nantz before the Super Bowl.
In 2009, former President Barack Obama took the tradition seriously – and did a Super Bowl interview for eight years.
Trump has been in the Super Bowl interview for three of his four years, while Biden has been in the last two.
Biden rarely does in-person interviews, but did do two this week after the State of the Union Address.
He sat down with PBS NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff during Wednesday’s trip to Wisconsin, and Telemundo’s Julio Vaqueiro during Thursday’s Tampa, Florida trip.
