The Super Bowl is less than a week away, and New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady is presumably preparing to face the Atlanta Falcons in the big game. He’s also being bombarded by calls for him to publicly denounce President Donald Trump.
Brady, who has described Trump as a “good friend of mine,” faced a lot of media scrutiny during the Republican presidential primary and general election, mostly because Trump kept claiming to have been “endorsed” by Brady. That wasn’t entirely true, although a reporter did snap a photo of a “Make America Great Again” hat in Brady’s locker.
When asked during the GOP primary in 2015 if Trump would be president, Brady half-jokingly replied, “I hope so. That would be great. There’d be a putting green on the White House lawn. I know that.” The all-star quarterback would (sort of) walk back his remarks after Trump starting making increasingly controversial statements on the campaign trail.
“Donald is a good friend of mine. I have known him for a long time,” Brady said after Trump first proposed a ban on Muslim immigration. “He’s always invited me to play golf and I’ve always enjoyed his company. I support my friends in everything they do.”
Now that Trump is president, and has begun to enact immigration controls for individuals from certain Muslim-majority countries, the scrutiny on Brady has increased leading up to the Super Bowl. Calls for him to denounce his “good friend” have grown louder.
USA Today sports columnist Nancy Armour argued that, in light of Trump’s controversial immigration policies, “Tom Brady no longer gets a pass on his friendship” with the commander in chief. “In refusing to publicly disavow Trump’s actions, Brady is giving tacit endorsement to both Trump and the chaos he has created,” Armour wrote.
Some social media users have called for a boycott of the Super Bowl over the Patriots’ ties to Trump. Team owner Robert Kraft is also a close friend of the president.
TAKE THE POLL