President Trump will not sit down for a pre-game interview before Sunday’s Super Bowl, according to a report.
A White House official told CNN the president decided not to participate in the traditional interview with NBC, which is broadcasting Sunday’s game between the New England Patriots and the Philadelphia Eagles.
Sources at NBC confirmed to CNN that their requests for a sit-down with Trump were turned down. However, if the president decides he does want to participate in an interview, the invitation stands.
NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt said this month the network had been discussing with the White House an interview with the president, but said the two parties hadn’t reached an agreement yet.
“Without getting into specifics, I can tell you that there have been conversations between NBC News and the White House about a conversation format, the timing, the location, those sorts of things,” he told Adweek.
President George W. Bush started the decade-old tradition of a pre-Super Bowl interview in 2004. It continued through President Barack Obama’s tenure in the White House, and Trump participated in an interview with Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly last year, when Fox televised the game.
But the president has frequently criticized NBC News as “fake news,” and called for executives at the network and Comcast to be fired last year.