Trump Says Belichick Hugged and Kissed Him, Said ‘I Love You’ at Patriots Game

Photo via AP

Trump-Patriots takes are a stale variety only getting staler. The three most prominent figures at the helm of a football franchise beloved by a predominantly liberal fanbase all support and enjoy the company of the most loathed United States president since Reconstruction, who happens to be a conservative. This apparent contradiction has launched a thousand think-pieces, of which few in recent months have offered much of anything new after regurgitating the events of the last two years—the hat in Brady’s locker, Belichick’s letter, Kraft sightings outside Trump Tower.

But leave it to the great Mark Leibovich at New York Times Magazine to dredge up some salacious new material. Here’s what we learned from his latest dispatch:

• Brady doesn’t know what to call Trump. In leaked voicemails reportedly hacked from Trump’s cell phone, a voice believed to belong to Brady called him “big guy” and “Donald.” But as Trump told Leibovich, he has yet to settle on an epithet: “He calls me Mr. Trump, which he shouldn’t, because we play golf all the time. Anyway, he says: ‘Mr. Trump—Donald,’ he doesn’t even know what the [expletive] to call me. It’s the craziest thing. He’s a friend of mine.”
• Trump thinks Kraft bungled Deflategate and “choked, just like Romney.” Kraft, who apparently became Trump’s preferred “big-time winner” owner friend after George Steinbrenner died, made what Trump believes was a bad deal with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to bring an end to the Deflategate saga: “He choked, just like Romney choked. He said: ‘You know what? They winked at me.’ I said, ‘Bob when you make a deal, you should have gotten it all wrapped up.’ Who ever heard of making a deal like that? Now you got this mess.”
• Trump thinks precious little of Goodell. Trump called the commish a “dope” and a “stupid guy.” “When he made the Ray Rice deal, everybody said: You’re stupid. You’re weak. And it was such a weak deal. So now he’s going overboard with their star, Brady.”
• Trump tried to convince Brady to sue the NFL for $500 million. “I said, ‘Tom.’—I gave him a lawyer.— I said: ‘Here’s what you do. Sue the N.F.L. for $500 million tomorrow. Sue ’em up in Boston, for everything. They’ll come to the table.’ He said, ‘Aw, man.’ He really was torn. He’s not Trump. He said, ‘I just want to win another Super Bowl.’”
• Belichick allegedly hugged and kissed Trump and told him he loves him at a Patriots game last year. “I’m on the sidelines with Kraft. He’s got [CBS chairman] Les Moonves right here. He’s got a lot of different people. And Belichick comes over in his Patriots sweatshirt and the hoodie and the whole thing. He hugs me, and he kisses me, and he said: ‘I love you. You’re the greatest.’”

Belichick is hardly a man known for effusive emotion, perhaps why his letter to Trump, recited at a New Hampshire rally on the eve of the election, came as such a surprise. But according to Trump, “he just feels warmly toward me.”