Tom Brady was asked about former President Donald Trump and racism on Monday in a Zoom press conference ― and the quarterback scrambled. (Watch the video above.)
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers star, who’s vying for a seventh Super Bowl title on Sunday, should probably have seen the Trump question coming. Brady has called Trump a friend and has received golfing invites from him, but said he drew the line at endorsing him. He declined to appear at the 2016 Republican National Convention when Trump was nominated the first time.
But on Monday, USA Today’s Nancy Armour referred back to a time when the player’s political allegiance seemed more apparent ― when he had a “Make America Great Again” hat in his locker in 2015 and said Trump had done “amazing things.”
Armour asked the 43-year-old player for his thoughts on “Undisputed” co-host Shannon Sharpe’s recent commentary that Brady would have endured far more criticism for the MAGA hat if he were Black because Black athletes aren’t “given as much room to weigh in on political topics and topics that could be controversial.” (“Blacks have always had to be very, very quiet about who their friends are,” Sharpe, a Black former NFL player, said on the Fox Sports talk show.)
If you’ve never watched a quarterback dance without actually seeing his feet, this was the moment.
“I’m not sure how to respond to hypothetical questions like that,” Brady replied. “I hope everyone can — we’re in this position like I am to, again, try to be the best I can be every day as an athlete, as a player, as a person in my community, for my team and so forth, so yeah, I’m not sure what else.”
Note the hesitation followed by visible relief that the interview was moving on. If he can be that elusive against the Kansas City Chiefs, he may well indeed win his seventh Super Bowl title.
Here are Sharpe’s comments in full.