President Donald Trump often boasts about his friendship with New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, coach Bill Belichick and star quarterback Tom Brady.
Trump took his defense of the Patriots and his criticism of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, a chief antagonist of the Patriots, to a new level in an interview with The New York Times published Wednesday.
New England plays Atlanta in Super Bowl 51 on Sunday.
“The commissioner is a weak guy,” Trump told the Times. “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.”
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He added: “The commissioner is a dope. He’s a stupid guy.”
In 2014, Goodell suspended Ray Rice, a former Baltimore Ravens’ running back, for two games after he was charged with domestic violence against his then-fiance. Many thought the suspension was too lenient. After a more complete video surfaced of the violent incident, Goodell suspended Rice indefinitely.
Goodell suspended Brady for four games for his role in “Deflategate.” The NFL alleged that Brady and the Patriots deflated footballs below their legal limit in the 2014 AFC Championship Game against the Indianapolis Colts, played on Jan. 18, 2015. New England won the game 45-7.
Brady fought the suspension, but eventually lost on appeal and sat out the first four games of this season.
The commissioner had a history with the Patriots, having docked the team a draft pick for “Spygate,” when New England was accused of illegally videotaping the New York Jets’ defensive signals during a 2007 game. New England was also accused of taping coaches’ signals at a practice before the Super Bowl that same season against the then-St. Louis Rams.
Brady said he and Trump have been friends for a long time. He had a “Make America Great Again” hat in his locker earlier this season.
“He’s been very supportive of me for a long time. It’s just a friendship,” Brady said in January.
Belichick wrote Trump a supportive letter before the election. Trump brought up the letter on the campaign trail.
“I write hundreds of letters and notes every month,” Belichick said, according to ESPN. “It doesn’t mean I agree with every single thing that every person thinks about politics or religion or other subjects.”
Kraft said Trump and his wife Melania visited with Kraft in 2011 when his wife died.
“Then he called me once a week for the whole year, the most depressing year of my life when I was down and out. He called me every week to see how I was doing, invited me to things, tried to lift my spirits. He was one of five or six people that were like that. I remember that,” Kraft said this week, according to CBS Sports.
Kraft attended a pre-inauguration dinner with Trump.
Goodell avoided several questions about Trump at his pre-Super Bowl press conference Wednesday in Houston. Goodell, whose league played a game in Mexico in 2016 and plans to do so again in 2017, did not comment on Trump’s plans to build a wall along the border between the United States and Mexico.
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