UPDATE: February 11 – Contrary to what Fox Corp. said, President Joe Biden will not sit down for a pre-Super Bowl interview with Fox, the White House confirmed for some news outlet.
“FOX has since issued a statement indicating the interview was rescheduled, which is inaccurate,” a White House spokesman said Friday.
The White House did not immediately return HuffPost’s request for more information.
At statement released on Friday, the White House said that Fox Soul told them that Fox Corp.
“Fox made the decision to cancel the interview with the President, not us,” the White House said in a statement.
It appears that President Joe Biden will sit down with Fox for a pre-Super Bowl interview.
The White House said Friday that Fox had asked to cancel the interview, which is a pregame tradition between the president and whichever network is hosting the game. But a few hours later, Fox Corp. announced that the interview will continue with Fox Soul, the company’s streaming service aimed at Black audiences.
“After the White House reached out to FOX Soul Thursday afternoon, there was some initial confusion. FOX Soul expected to interview the President for Sunday’s Super Bowl,” said a Fox Corp. spokesperson.
President Joe Biden apparently won’t sit down for a traditional pre-Super Bowl interview with Fox, which airs Sunday and whose parent company has had an icy relationship with the administration.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Friday, when pre-Super Bowl interviews are usually taped, that the plan was in place but Fox had bowed out.
“The President is looking forward to an interview with Fox Soul to discuss the Super Bowl, the State of the Union, and critical issues affecting the daily lives of Black Americans,” Jean-Pierre said in the statement. “We have been informed that Fox Corp. has requested that the interview be canceled.”
Fox Soul is the company’s livestream platform aimed at black audiences. It’s set to launch in 2020, with one Fox executive describing it as a place for a show about “what African Americans say at the kitchen table.”
A Fox spokeswoman did not immediately return HuffPost’s request for information about the interview.
Each year, the president usually gives an interview to the network that broadcasts the Super Bowl that may air before the game; Biden sat down with NBC News’ Lester Holt in 2022, and with CBS’ Norah O’Donnell in 2021 for the pregame interview. But relations with Fox, whose conservative network Fox News has been highly critical of the presidency, are more strained.
Two years ago, Biden had not given an interview to the network. Prime time hosts, including Sean Hannity, often claimed on air that Biden was “demented” and “disturbed by his own cognitive decline.”
Former President Donald Trump also declined to give an interview to the network he was talking to, and declined a 2018 pre-Super Bowl interview with NBC.