Patriots quarterback Tom Brady has no problem with teammates skipping their visit to the White House.
Brady has called President Trump a friend, but several Patriots have said they will not go because they oppose Trump’s policies. Brady skipped the Patriots’ only White House visit during the Obama years, but he said this morning on PFT Live that had nothing to do with politics.
“Everybody has their own choice,” Brady said. “There’s certain years, like a couple years ago, I wanted to go and didn’t get the opportunity based on the schedule — we didn’t get told until I think like 10 days before we were going, and at that point I had something I’d been planning for months and couldn’t get there.”
The Patriots won three Super Bowls when George W. Bush was president, and Brady also went to the Bill Clinton White House in college when Michigan won the national championship. He considers it a valuable experience, but he understands that not everyone will make it.
“It really is a great experience,” Brady said. “Putting politics aside, it never was a political thing. At least, it never was to me. It meant you won a championship and you got to experience something cool with your team, with your teammates. Everyone has their own choice. It’s an offseason. These days are valuable for everybody. You only get so much time with your family and friends, and if people don’t want to go they don’t want to go and that’s their choice.”
Players miss the White House visit every year, but this year is fundamentally different because players are specifically tying their plans to skip the visit with their opposition to Trump. Brady sounds OK with that, even if he and Trump are golfing buddies.