Biden Team Says He Turned Down Super Bowl Interview To Keep Politics Out Of Game

Joe Biden will skip the pre-game Super Bowl interview for the second straight year, this time with CBS.

His advisers told CNN his decision to skip the interview stems from a coordinated plan to "give the already fatigued public a break from politics during the big game."

While fans do not clamor to hear Biden, or any president, speak before a football game – the White House's decision is consistent with a large-scale strategy to keep Biden away from public questioning. 

Biden rarely speaks to the media, other than short pressers that do far more harm than good to the defense that he's not in cognitive decline. 

In 2020, Biden's team calculated it was better to hide him than try to allow him to convince people to vote for him. His team will likely take the same approach this year, four years later.

Clay Travis and Dana Perino also wondered whether the future of the pre-Super Bowl interview with the president would continue now that both Biden and Trump have declined several interviews.

Perino hopes so:

It's possible. But the tradition is not without value to the sitting president. 

Even as the value of television diminishes, the Super Bowl continues to defy the era of cord-cutting. 

Last year, the Super Bowl set the all-time viewership record with 112 million viewers.

There's an expectation around the media industry that this year's game – perhaps with an assist from Taylor Swift – could top the viewership record. 

So Biden, or any future president who declines the interview, is turning down invaluable reach.

Fox, NBC, and ABC/ESPN will carry the next three Super Bowls, respectively.