Biden’s Super Bowl Interview Snub Is a Sign of Low Confidence, Political Strategist Says

Democratic political strategist James Carville said President Joe Biden’s decision to skip the Super Bowl interview is a ’sign’ that the administration has little confidence in him.

Mr. Carville said that President Biden is down by two points in average polls against former President Donald Trump and that the Super Bowl interview was a great opportunity for him to engage with a massive audience.

“It’s the biggest television audience, not even close, and you get a chance to do a 20, 25-minute interview on that day, and you don’t do it,” Mr. Carville said during an interview on CNN’s “Smerconish” on Feb. 10. “That’s a kind of sign that the staff or yourself doesn’t have much confidence in you. There’s no other way to read this.”

This is the second year in a row that President Biden has turned down a Super Bowl interview, breaking with the tradition President Obama started in 2009 for a sitting president to talk with the American public.

In this year’s Super Bowl, the Kansas City Chiefs played against the San Francisco 49ers at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Feb. 11, 2024. Last year, the Super Bowl between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs attracted 115 million viewers.

Host Michael Smerconish agreed with Mr. Carville about the Super Bowl, saying, “It is the one time when the whole country comes together. It’s an election year. It’s advertising. You don’t have to pay for [it], and they passed it up.”

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During the interview, Mr. Carville repeatedly mentioned President Biden’s old age. “He is old. I know what it is because I’m almost as old as he is, and it’s never going to get better,” he said.

Mr. Carville’s remarks about President Biden’s old age come at a time when the latter’s mental acuity is being questioned, following Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report on the investigation into the handling of classified documents by the president.

The report described the president as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” The report also referred to the president’s mental fitness as “hazy,” “significantly limited,” and showed signs of “diminished faculties and faulty memory.”

Never Too Late to ‘Change Horses’

In the interview, when asked whether it’s too late for the Democratic Party to change President Biden as their presidential candidate, Mr. Carville said, “It’s never too late.” He cited the example of President Lyndon Johnson in 1968 when he dropped out as a presidential candidate. However, he noted that such changes can be quite chaotic.

Former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy also said President Joe Biden would not secure the nominee for the Democratic Party due to concerns over his mental acuity following the special counsel’s report.

The 38-year-old biotech entrepreneur predicted that the Democratic Party would consider former first lady Michelle Obama as its presidential candidate for the 2024 White House bid.

According to Fox News, “Real Time” host Bill Maher said on Feb. 9 that Democrats still have time to replace President Biden at the Democratic National Convention convention this summer.

When President Biden held a press conference to dismiss concerns over his mental fitness following Mr. Hur’s report, he mistakenly mixed up the presidents of Mexico and Egypt.