News & Politics

Tom Brady Roasts Trump at White House Podium

Sleepy Joe, meet Sleepy Tom.

Brady and the Buccaneers visited the White House to celebrate their Super Bowl win. Photograph courtesy AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta.

Et tu, Tom? After a notable absence from the White House of his “great friend” Former President Donald Trump, NFL star Tom Brady celebrated his Super Bowl win alongside the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with President Joe Biden. 

Brady’s attendance at the event was notable, considering he had turned down invitations to the White House under the presidencies of Barack Obama and Donald Trump, last visiting 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in 2005. Trump, who publicly announced that he received the football star’s vote in 2016 (Brady’s wife, Gisele Bündchen, says otherwise), was reportedly incensed when Brady declined to show up to the White House in 2017 to celebrate his Super Bowl win with the New England Patriots. 

If  Trump tuned in to today’s livestream of the ceremony, he might be feeling similarly stung. At the podium, Brady invoked the former president and his orbit’s desperate claims that the 2020 election was stolen, quipping that about 40% of people still believe the Buccaneers did not win, then turning to Biden and saying “You understand that Mr. President?”. Rubbing even more salt into the wound, Brady poked fun at one of Trump’s trademark insults for Mr. Biden, saying that after he forgot a down in a game in Chicago, people dubbed him “Sleepy Tom”.

Considering Trump is still muzzled on the social media platforms where we might have seen him react in years past, it might be a little bit before we get word of his thoughts on the matter. But it sure looks like this could be the final nail in the coffin for Donald and Tom’s fraught bromance.

It is also, of course, bad news for the legion of Brady haters among football fans, some of whom used the quarterback’s alleged MAGA enthusiasm as a reason to dislike the star quarterback. Luckily, plenty of reasons remain.

 

Editorial Fellow

Clara Grudberg joined Washingtonian in July 2021. Originally from New York City, she studies history and journalism at Georgetown University.