Tom Brady Not Attending White House Ceremony Today Because Of ‘Personal Family Matters’

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Several members of the New England Patriots will not be visiting President Donald Trump for a ceremony at the White House including Tom Brady.

Brady released a statement as to why he will not be attending the presidential Super Bowl celebration:

“I am so happy and excited that our team is being honored at the White House today. Our team has accomplished something very special that we are all proud of and will be for years to come. Thank you to the President for hosting this honorary celebration and for supporting our team for as long as I can remember. In light of some recent developments, I am unable to attend today’s ceremony, as I am attending to some personal family matters. Hopefully, if we accomplish the goal of winning a championship in the future years, we will back on the South Lawn again soon. Have a great day!”

This is rather surprising since in October Brady said that he considers Trump a friend.

“I always try to keep it in context because for 16 years you know someone before maybe he was in the position that he was in,” Brady said of Trump in January. “He’s been very supportive of me for a long time. It’s just a friendship. I have a lot of friends. I call a lot of people.”

Many members of the Super Bowl-winning Patriots declared that they would skip the traditional event for political reasons. Martellus Bennett, Devin McCourty, Dont’a Hightower, and Alan Branch have all said they would not accept an invitation to visit the White House because Donald Trump is the President.

The Patriots quarterback said that he has no negative feelings about his teammates’ decision to skip the White House visit.

“Everybody has their own choice,” Brady said in February. “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.”

“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,” Brady added.

Brady famously skipped the White House visit in 2015 when Barack Obama was in office due to a prior family commitment.

“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,” Brady said of the Obama White House visit.

Brady was in attendance during the team’s three visits to George W. Bush’s White House. Back in his college days, Brady also went to the White House when Bill Clinton was in office after Michigan won the national championship.