Former President Donald Trump archly offered to replace President Joe Biden as the subject of the annual presidential Super Bowl interview. Executives at CBS, the network hosting the Super Bowl, should call his bluff; the results would be enlightening.

Over the past two decades, presidents have made it a tradition to give an interview to the network hosting the “big game.” The interviews tend to range in tone from softball to light grilling. Trump was the first to eschew the tradition, skipping an interview with NBC in 2018. Biden announced that he, too, would be taking a pass this year, which elicited the following missive on Trump’s Truth Social account:

Crooked Joe Biden has just announced that he will not be doing the big Super Bowl Interview. A great decision, he can’t put two sentences together. I WOULD BE HAPPY TO REPLACE HIM – would be “RATINGS GOLD!”

CBS should call his bluff.

I may be in the minority at a time when most of the media exists in a constant state of panic about how to handle Trump (many have apparently and delusionally concluded he must be ignored) but I believe that journalists should take seriously any opportunity to confront the former president on his constant lies.

Doing so is not a waste. Tough journalists have seen good results with Trump interviews. He last sat for such an interview with Kristin Welker for NBC’s Meet the Press, an interview that made serious news. So, too, did Bret Baier’s interview with Trump last summer. Arguably, some of the most newsworthy moments of Trump’s time in the White House came from proper journalists like Lester Holt and Jonathan Swan.

There are two outcomes should CBS challenge Trump to an interview. Road one: he takes them up on the offer and faces tough questions about, say, his continued false claim of a stolen election, or his push to torpedo a bill that will help close the border, from world-class journalists like Scott Pelley or Norah O’Donnell.

Road two, the more likely outcome: Trump says no to the offer, which critics would see unfavorably. But at least CBS didn’t dodge the opportunity to interview the once and potentially future world leader, and would likely get some praise for the offer.

Of course, this strategy comes with risks. There is a vocal set of viewers who will condemn such an offer as yet another example of “empty podium” syndrome that many blame for helping elect Trump in 2016. (See CNN’s calamitous Trump Town Hall as an example.) And that’s a fair criticism — perhaps it negates the value of the ratings pop a Trump interview would bring to CBS.

But sunlight is the best disinfectant. And if Trump is the pernicious wannabe dictator that so many in political media are warning about, ignoring that threat will not make it go away.

The post CBS Should Call Trump’s Bluff and Offer to Host Him for Traditional Super Bowl Interview first appeared on Mediaite.

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