Former President Joe Biden’s campaign team allegedly opted against a Super Bowl interview last year because of special counsel Robert Hur’s report, Fox News Digital has learned.

A source familiar with Anita Dunn’s interview with the House Oversight Committee told Fox News Digital the report, in which Hur described Biden as «well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,» factored into Biden breaking with the decades-old tradition.

But a source close to Dunn told Fox News Digital she said Biden’s team decided against doing a Super Bowl interview last year because it thought the main coverage would be about what he did with classified records and not about the president’s policy decisions. The source claimed the choice was made before Hur’s report was released.

Dunn sat with House investigators for just over five hours Thursday as Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., probes allegations that Biden’s inner circle worked to conceal evidence of mental decline in the former president.

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The source familiar with her interview said Dunn also told committee staff that Biden’s inner circle came to a consensus he should not take a cognitive test, concluding it would offer no political benefit.

It comes two days after Fox News Digital was told that ex-deputy White House chief of staff Bruce Reed, who met with House investigators Tuesday, said Biden’s White House physician Kevin O’Connor called cognitive tests «meaningless.»

The source close to Dunn said Thursday that Biden’s team believed he would be able to pass a cognitive test, even if they saw no political benefit in one.

Dunn also told investigators she was not aware of Biden’s stutter, which he’s said he dealt with all his life, until media coverage of it in 2020, the first source said. 

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«She went on to blame the media for pushing the narrative that President Biden was old,» the source said.

The practice of pre-Super Bowl interviews began with former President George W. Bush opting to sit for an interview before the big game in 2004 and has followed by both former President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump, though Trump also skipped out on a Super Bowl interview in 2019.

Biden sat for Super Bowl interviews in 2021 and 2022, but did not in 2023 and 2024.

Anita Dunn, a former senior advisor to President Joe Biden, and other staff members stand without protective face masks in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington May 13, 2021.  (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque)

In 2023, talks about a pre-Super Bowl interview fell through with Fox Corp.

Hur’s report was released publicly Feb. 8, 2024. The Super Bowl was played Feb. 11 that year.

Hur was appointed special counsel by former Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2023 to investigate whether Biden mishandled classified documents. 

Hur «uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice-presidency when he was a private citizen» but said it did not «establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.»

Given that Biden «would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,» Hur said, «it would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him — by then a former president well into his eighties — of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.»

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Dunn is the tenth ex-Biden administration official to appear before the House Oversight Committee.

In addition to investigating the alleged cover-up, Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., is looking into whether decisions were approved via autopen without the former president’s knowledge.

Of particular interest to Comer is the myriad of clemency orders Biden signed in the latter half of his presidency, though the former president told The New York Times last month he was behind every decision.

L-R: Ian Sams, former special assistant to the president and senior advisor in the White House Counsel’s Office; Andrew Bates, former deputy assistant to the president and senior deputy press secretary; former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre; and Jeff Zients, former White House chief of staff, are expected to sit down with House Oversight Committee investigators behind closed doors. (Fox News)

Dunn, like most who appeared before her, defended Biden’s mental acuity to committee investigators.

«The president made it clear that decisions rested with him, and White House staff brought issues to him for him to decide,» Dunn said in her opening statement, obtained by Fox News Digital. «I believed strongly then, and I believe just as strongly today, that Joe Biden was an effective president who accomplished many important things for the American people.»

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A spokesperson for the House Oversight Committee criticized Dunn after the statement came out in the media, however.

«It’s no surprise Anita Dunn is telling the American people not to believe their own eyes, claiming Joe Biden was sharp and ‘fully engaged.’ This opening statement, leaked to media before Ms. Dunn even delivered it, is yet another example of the absurd lengths Biden loyalists will go to defend his failed presidency,» the spokesperson told Fox News Digital.

Fox News Digital also reached out to a representative for Biden and to Dunn’s counsel for comment.

La decisión del gobierno israelí se produce en medio de divisiones políticas internas, reclamos internacionales y una situación humanitaria crítica para los más de dos millones de habitantes de la Franja de Gaza

Israel anunció este viernes una nueva fase en su ofensiva en la Franja de Gaza con la aprobación, por parte del Gabinete de Seguridad, de un plan militar que contempla la toma de control total del principal centro urbano del enclave por parte de las Fuerzas de Defensa. La medida, impulsada por el primer ministro Benjamin Netanyahu, forma parte de una estrategia que busca, según su oficina, la derrota de Hamas, el retorno de los rehenes y el establecimiento de una administración civil alternativa, sin participación del grupo terrorista ni de la Autoridad Palestina.

Netanyahu afirmó que Israel no desea mantener el control permanente del enclave, sino establecer un “perímetro de seguridad” y transferir la administración a fuerzas árabes que no representen una amenaza. “Eso no es posible con Hamas”, dijo en una entrevista con Fox News, dejando claro que su gobierno descarta cualquier futuro político para el grupo islamista.

El plan se impone frente a una propuesta rechazada internamente que, según medios israelíes, fue impulsada por el jefe del Estado Mayor Eyal Zamir, quien se habría opuesto a una ocupación total de Gaza por el alto riesgo para los rehenes y la población civil.

En Gaza, la población civil enfrenta condiciones cada vez más críticas. Según la Organización Mundial de la Salud, al menos 99 personas han muerto este año por causas relacionadas con la malnutrición, aunque se estima que la cifra real es mayor. El acceso a la ayuda humanitaria sigue siendo limitado: la ONU calcula que se necesitan 600 camiones diarios para cubrir las necesidades básicas de los 2,2 millones de habitantes del enclave, pero actualmente solo ingresan entre 70 y 80 camiones, con cargas restringidas.

A continuación la cobertura en vivo de la ocupación israelí en Gaza:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is considering reversing a ban on the «shark attack,» the time-honored aggressive practice used by drill sergeants to train U.S. Army recruits in basic training.

The practice was usually employed at the beginning of training by having several drill sergeants swarming trainees and yelling in their faces at the top of their lungs.

«It starts at basic training. It starts at our military academies,» Hegseth said Thursday during an appearance on «The Will Cain Show.» 

«We are going back to basics. Drill sergeants will be drill sergeants with knife hands who ensure, who maintain good order and discipline and train up great recruits who will make great formations. Just like we need military officers with that same rigorous discipline and background. So, we’re going back to the basics, and it’s bearing fruit.»

HEGSETH VOWS TO RESTORE WARRIOR MENTALITY AND RAISE STANDARDS IN SWEEPING MILITARY TRANSFORMATION

The Army began phasing out the shark attack in recent years and largely ended it in 2020. It was replaced by the ‘First 100 Yards,’ a more structured training exercise designed to build camaraderie and encourage teamwork under stress.

«‘The First 100 Yards’ is a U.S. Army trainee’s first exposure to their Basic Training (BCT), Drill Sergeants, and their first opportunity to begin their transformation as members of the world’s most potent and lethal fighting force,» the U.S. Army Center for Initial Military Training posted on Facebook. «‘The First 100 Yards,’ a homage to their lineage of closing the last 100 yards of the fight, incorporates teamwork into a competition that features mental and physical challenges on the day they arrive to their basic training company.»

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The act of replacing the shark attack grew out of deliberations at the Army Infantry School in Fort Benning, Georgia. Senior leaders believed the practice was outdated but stressed at the time that the Army was not going soft despite the absence of the in-your-face pile-on trainees were subjected to. 

Supporters of the shark attack said it helps trainees transition from civilian to military life and prepares them for the chaotic environment some will experience on the battlefield. 

«The secretary is very excited to be making basic training great,» Defense Department press secretary Kingsley Wilson said Thursday. «Again, I can confirm that he’s going to be looking at basic training and making sure that the standards are where they should be. 

«We want our warfighters to be strong, and that starts in basic training, and we want to make sure we really, again, go back to basics. And shark attacks are going to be something that he is looking at reinstating.»

Sgts. 1st Class Alec Donahoe and Todd Owen, drill sergeants with the Mississippi National Guard Recruiting and Retention Battalion, motivate a warrior in the Recruit Sustainment Program during a «shark attack» Oct. 7, 2017. (U.S. National Guard photo by Staff Sgt. Scott Tynes)

One Army unit recently reversed a ban on «tossing bays,» another traditional practice in which drill sergeants overturn bunks and mattresses, wall lockers, garbage cans and other items in the bays where enlisted trainees sleep, forcing them to clean the area. 

A July 31 memo by Col. Christopher J.C. Hallows, commander of the 197th Infantry Brigade, which trains infantry soldiers, announced that bay tossing was «strictly prohibited.»

«Drill sergeants will not ‘toss’ the bay to include flipping mattresses, knocking over wall lockers, touching and/or damaging Trainee personal items or equipment,» the memo states. «Drill sergeants will not use bay ‘tossing’ for any reason to include methods of corrective action.»

On Sunday, Hallows issued another memo reversing the ban. 

On Thursday, Hegseth noted that bay tossing and the shark attack have been part of basic training for decades. 

U.S. Army Drill Sgt. 1st Class Aleman assigned to Foxtrot 1st Battalion 34th Infantry Regiment participates in the «shark attack» or fear stage of the discipline process.  (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Darius Davis)

«It’s the basic stuff that anyone who went through any form of basic training for decades understood as a recruit, you were going into a crucible,» he said. «You were going to be forged. You were gonna be challenged. You were to be scared, nervous and anxious.

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«And by coming through that, you are gonna be forged an American warrior. A shark attack is when drill sergeants surround one particular enlistee, right?» he added. «Creating a stressful situation that they have to figure out how to manage. Bed tossing inside barracks after you’ve had a long day doing map out on the range or walk in patrol — this is basic stuff. This is not beyond what’s been done. This is a restoration.»