CNN
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President Joe Biden has snubbed a Fox News request for a pre-Super Bowl interview on Sunday, as the Democratic president continues to ice out the right-wing channel and decline requests to sit down with its hosts and anchors.
Biden is not expected to participate in the annual presidential Super Bowl interview with Fox, the network airing the game this year. The Biden administration attempted a workaround that avoided a sit-down with Fox News, with which the White House has a contentious relationship. Fox has canceled the interview, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a tweet Friday.
Fox did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Aides for Biden had instead been working toward an interview with Fox Soul, a small streaming platform aimed at Black Americans owned by FOX Television Stations.
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. That plan, however, was doomed to fail.
“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,” Jean-Pierre said in a tweet Friday.
The canceled interview is the latest example of the Democratic president icing out the right-wing channel and declining requests to sit down with its hosts and anchors.
Biden has not granted Fox News a single interview during his presidency, despite the network repeatedly asking. The channel portrays him and his administration in a negative light, with extremists such as Tucker Carlson regularly launching vicious attacks on Biden.
Despite some discussion early on about an interview, the White House never committed to granting a sit-down to Fox News. Typically, such interviews are pre-taped on the Friday before the Super Bowl.
Fox on Thursday had not been formally turned down, but was “operating like it’s not happening,” according to a person familiar with the matter at Fox News, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the interview.
Biden sat down for two television interviews earlier in the week, one with PBS NewsHour and another with Telemundo, which makes the snub all the more notable.
There is some recent precedent for declining the traditional pre-Super Bowl interview. President Donald Trump, who villainized the press with lies and smears, declined to sit down with anchor Lester Holt when NBC hosted the Super Bowl in 2018.
If Biden were to have done an interview with Fox News ahead of the Super Bowl, it would almost certainly have been with Bret Baier, who is a generally respected, traditional news anchor.
It’s not just the right-wing commentators at Fox News with whom Biden has taken issue. The President has even tangled with Fox News’ reporters, calling Peter Doocy, its White House correspondent last year a “stupid son of a bitch.” Biden later called Doocy to apologize.
Source : Nbcnewyork
