Joe Biden skipping a pre-Super Bowl interview with CBS is a super-sized mistake. Here's why

Say it ain’t so, Joe.

President Joe Biden has declined a pre-Super Bowl interview for the second year in a row.

Come on, man, as he might say. What are you thinking?

Lots of things, evidently — it’s supposedly part of a larger media strategy. Kind of like how counting votes is part of Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s larger political strategy.

Please. Sometimes you just screw up.

There was none of the Sturm und Drang of last year, at least, when the White House went back and forth with Fox Corp. over whether Biden would sit for an interview. That was a missed opportunity.

This year it’s just a dumb mistake. After the special counsel investigating Biden's handling of classified documents described him Thursday as "a well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory," it's more important than ever that he appear.

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Why skip out on CBS News?

In 2023 the interview was scheduled to be with Fox Soul, a streaming platform aimed at Black audiences. Both sides blamed each other for the collapse. Because that’s how we do things now. No offense to Fox Soul, but streaming views there wouldn’t come anywhere close to the exposure Biden would have gotten on Fox, the network that broadcast the game. (Though it would have given Biden a chance to reach an audience he needs to be reelected.)

This year, the game is on CBS. It isn’t clear who would have interviewed the president, but my money would have been on Norah O’Donnell, the anchor of “CBS Evening News.” She’s no pushover, but it’s unlikely that an hour or two before the Super Bowl she would go all Marjorie Taylor Greene and go off about Hunter Biden or something.

When your presumptive opponent is flitting back and forth from one courtroom to the next, facing various indictments, you have the chance to answer possibly challenging, but by no means gotcha, questions. And you pass? In an election year?

I just don’t get it.

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The official explanation is pretty lame

For the record, here is the explanation: “We hope viewers enjoy watching what they tuned in for — the game,” White House communications director Ben LaBolt told CNN.

I’m sorry, but football-related programming begins at 9:30 a.m. Arizona time on CBS. Kickoff isn’t till 4:30 p.m. It isn’t that I’m not looking forward to “NFL Slimetime” or the 437th feature about the San Francisco 49ers Brock Purdy (from Arizona!) being the last player selected in the 2022 draft. Or maybe, just maybe, the occasional Travis Kelce-Taylor Swift update.

Last year’s Super Bowl, played in Glendale, attracted 115.1 million viewers; it was the most-watched telecast in history. Of any kind, not just football. With the prospect of Swift jetting in from Japan, you can bet your bottom dollar that this year’s numbers will be bigger, probably much bigger. No, nothing in the pregame show is going to approach that, but the pre-game ratings will also be plenty big.

The presidential Super Bowl interview started in 2004, when Jim Nantz, the play-by-play announcer for the game — which tells you what they’re usually like — talked with George W. Bush. Barack Obama did them live, which, I get, would not be something Biden’s camp would want. (One of those Obama interviews was with Bill O’Reilly on Fox News, not exactly a warm embrace.)

And Biden is not the first president to skip a Super Bowl interview. Trump skipped one in 2018 with NBC, when he was mad at the network (imagine).

Donald Trump volunteered to take Biden's place

Guess who volunteered to take Biden’s place this year? You guessed it: Trump, who reacted with characteristic charm on his Truth Social network: “A great decision, he can’t put two sentences together. I WOULD BE HAPPY TO REPLACE HIM – would be 'RATINGS GOLD!'”

This is the kind of thing you set yourself up for when you skip out on good opportunities. You can’t live your life worrying about what Trump says about you — unless, apparently, you are a GOP member of Congress, in which case you immediately offer up your soul — but the knock on Biden has always been that he’s hiding out, ducking the media, afraid to answer tough questions. Thursday's claims about his memory only add to the urgency of him proving that he is mentally fit.

It’s hard to imagine a better platform, at a better time, than a sit-down before the Super Bowl. Biden says during the election campaign he will hammer home the notion that Trump is a threat to democracy. How? What’s he going to do, type up a statement and nail it to a tree in the park?

This is a golden opportunity for Biden to get his message across. Why on earth isn’t he taking it?

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Where to watch Super Bowl 2024

Kansas City Chiefs vs. San Francisco 49ers face off at 4:30 p.m. Arizona time on CBS and Nickelodeon. Streaming on Paramount+.

Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. X: @goodyk. Subscribe to the weekly movies newsletter.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Joe Biden is passing on CBS Super Bowl interview. Why that's a mistake