The tradition of a Super Bowl pre-game presidential interview will continue on Sunday, when NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt sits down with President Joe Biden.
The interview will take place in Virginia, where the president is scheduled to be on Thursday. Portions will air on NBC Nightly News on Thursday, with additional highlights the next day on Today, MSNBC, NBCNews.com and NBC News Now. NBC Nightly News also will have further excerpts.
Norah O’Donnell interviewed Biden last year when CBS had rights to the Super Bowl.
The tradition started in 2004, when Jim Nantz interviewed President George W. Bush. Barack Obama was interviewed in 2009 by Matt Lauer. Obama continued the tradition throughout his presidency.
Donald Trump also did pre-game sitdowns, starting with a sitdown with Bill O’Reilly in 2017 when Fox had the rights that year. Trump skipped the following year, 2018, when NBC had the rights, but returned the following year. In 2019 he sat down with CBS’s Face the Nation moderator Margaret Brennan. Trump spoke to Fox News’ Sean Hannity in an interviewed that aired before the 2020 Super Bowl.
The benefit to the White House for such interviews is obvious: A large audience. But the interviews also have generated controversy, as when Trump appeared to defend Vladimir Putin in the 2017 interview with O’Reilly.
Must Read Stories
Subscribe to Deadline Breaking News Alerts and keep your inbox happy.