President Trump To Be Part Of NBC Super Bowl Broadcast Despite Not Attending Game
President will sit down with Tom Llamas at White House, continuing presidential tradition Biden broke
SAN FRANCISCO – President Donald Trump has said he will not be attending Super Bowl LX, but he'll be part of the broadcast because he'll sit down with NBC News for an interview that will be aired prior to the game, according to multiple NBC executives.
"We expect that's going to happen and there are plans for that but nothing finalized yet that we can talk about," NBC Sports executive vice president for communication Greg Hughes told OutKick on Tuesday.
NBC News executive vice president Stephen Labaton said he would be able to share details of the network's plans "shortly" and did just that once NBC News anchor Tom Llamas announced the interview on Nightly News.
Llamas will sit down with President Trump for a taped one-on-one at the White House on Wednesday. A portion of the wide-ranging interview will air on NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas at 6:30 p.m. (ET) the same day.
A separate segment of the interview – a Super Bowl tradition – will air during NBC’s Super Bowl LX Pregame Show on Sunday.
As to the Super Bowl tradition thing:
The first presidential Super Bowl interview was conducted in 2004 when CBS sportscaster Jim Nantz interviewed George W. Bush.
Barack Obama did an interview each of the eight years of his presidency and Trump followed suit during his first term.
Joe Biden Couldn't Do Traditional Interview
Joe Biden declined to be interviewed in 2023 and 2024, citing a desire not to distract from the focus on the game. Yeah, OK.
It says right here it was more likely a Sleepy Joe thing that evinced itself when he was unable to articulate cogent thoughts during his debate with Trump.
Trump, at the time running for president a second time, volunteered to step in for Biden but CBS told OutKick they declined the offer
Anyway, Trump returned on FOX last year and will obviously be on NBC this Super Bowl.
This Super Bowl week has been interesting in that it's been highlighted by controversies and politics.
Green Day was selected as the opening act for the pregame show and that put their ‘American Idiot" album in focus with it’s anti-American culture tracks.
Bad Bunny had already been chosen amid controversy about his anti-American stances and he only turned up the heat with an anti-ICE Grammy Award acceptance speech. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell had to address that this week.
HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 17: Bad Bunny performs onstage at the 2025 iHeartRadio Music Awards at Dolby Theatre on March 17, 2025 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Monica Schipper/Getty Images)
Trump, Bad Bunny, Green Day Have Messages
Then Trump declined to attend, citing the distance from the East Coast to the game site here. (Note: Air Force One can reach California, folks). Then he confessed he's not a fan of either Bad Bunny or Green Day.
And on Tuesday, the NFL and DHS had to address the status of ICE's potential presence at and around the event.
NBC Sports has nothing to do with that stuff, folks.
"We don't have input or say on who is the performer before or during," NBC Sports President Rick Cordella told OutKick. "We're the distributor of that, effectively, so there's not a lot of opinions to talk about that.
"Our hope is that these shows tend to be a unifier for the country and not political statements or anything else. I think we're looking forward to what Green Day and Bad Bunny will do."
And also, perhaps, what Trump is likely to say.