Joe Biden’s pre-Super Bowl interview with Fox News is officially off. As late as Saturday evening, both the network and the White House were putting out conflicting statements on whether the traditional presidential interview with the network carrying the big game was on or off.
On Friday, the White House claimed the interview would be carried by Fox Soul — an obscure streaming service aimed at the black community affiliated with Fox Corporation.
But later on Friday, the White House suddenly canceled the interview.
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. We’ve been informed that Fox Corp has asked for the interview to be cancelled.
— Karine Jean-Pierre (@PressSec) February 10, 2023
There’s been no official word but the key to this story may be that the Biden team reached out to Fox Soul without checking with Fox News if it was agreeable that Biden’s interview appears on an obscure, barely-watched streaming service as opposed to the Fox broadcast network that would be seen by 20-30 million people pre-Super Bowl.
Fox tried to force the White House to accept their terms by announcing the rescheduling of the interview on Fox News. The White House wasn’t biting.
As a political ploy, Biden’s gambit worked. The president won’t upset his base of rabid, anti-Fox supporters while he scores points with the black community and makes Fox look like a bunch of racists and partisan hacks.
“As we said earlier, we had arranged an interview with Fox Sports Host Mike Hill & Vivica A. Fox with the President ahead of the Super Bowl and Fox Corp had the interview canceled,” a White House spokesperson said, per CNN Business. “FOX has since put out a statement indicating the interview was rescheduled, which is inaccurate.”
Typically, such interviews are pre-taped on the Friday before the Super Bowl with the network airing the event.
For weeks, Fox News had been seeking an interview with Biden. But the White House never committed to one with the right-wing channel, with which the White House has a contentious relationship.
Instead, the White House attempted to circumvent Fox News by trying to set up an interview with Fox Soul. An interview with the Fox Soul network could have allowed the White House a workaround to still participate in the traditional pre-game conversation with a Fox-aligned outlet without having to sit with one of Fox News’ anchors or reporters.
Adding insult to Fox’s injury, Biden sat down with both the Spanish language channel Telemundo and PBS this week, highlighting his disdain for the millions of Americans who regularly tune into Fox. Biden is terrified of his far-left supporters who have cheered on his snubs of the largest cable news network in the world.
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At a time when there were only three broadcast news channels, Ronald Reagan regularly sat down for interviews with reporters and networks that regularly and viciously attacked him. In the end, reporters like ABC’s Sam Donaldson respected Reagan immensely for the way he made himself available.
Reagan was a great man and an above-average president. Biden is a leftist lickspittle who fears the hysterical backlash from the radical left wing for sitting down with the enemy.
Someone should remind Biden of Reagan’s behavior with unfriendly reporters and networks.
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