Tom Brady Texting Ron DeSantis Is Trump’s Nightmare Come True

Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photos: Getty Images

While some of us mainly know Tom Brady as a frequent Super Bowl villain with a strange strawberry phobia who may be on the verge of divorcing Gisele Bündchen, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback is so cool to some folks that merely having someone text him in their presence is worth bragging about. This is how we learned that Brady is now on “texting terms” with Florida governor Ron DeSantis. Donald Trump was recently raided by the FBI and betrayed by a trusted Diet Coke valet, but this still might be the most tragic thing that’s happened to him in 2022.

The New York Times reports that Tim Michels, the Republican gubernatorial nominee in Wisconsin who recently hosted DeSantis in his home state, recently gossiped about Brady’s new pal to some far-right supporters:

“I took Governor DeSantis to the Packer game at Lambeau Field,” Mr. Michels told a gathering of the Lake Country Patriots, a far-right group, on Thursday at a brewery in Oconomowoc, Wis. The New York Times was denied entry to the publicly advertised event, but obtained a recording of Mr. Michels’s remarks.

Mr. DeSantis, who on the day of the Packers game had appeared at a rally for Mr. Michels and Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, “had never been to Lambeau Field before and he wanted to go,” Mr. Michels said. “We’re sitting there, you know, we’re watching the game and all of a sudden, I look over and he’s texting and he says, ‘How do you spell Lambeau?’”

Mr. Michels continued: “I say, ‘Who are you texting with?’ He says, ‘I’m texting with Tom Brady.’ The governor of Florida gets to text with Tom Brady.”

Mr. Michels added, “I’m hoping that when I’m governor of Wisconsin, I can text Aaron Rodgers,” the longtime Packers quarterback.

On the surface, this is just a very weird way for Michels to say he wants Rodgers’s digits. But if you know a little about Trump’s history with Brady, it’s devastating. Before Trump entered politics, he tweeted about his “friend” Brady so frequently that the Washington Post mused he might have a “man crush” on the quarterback. Yet Brady confirmed their relationship was reciprocal during the 2016 campaign, when a “Make America Great Again” hat was spotted in his locker. Brady said it “would be great” if Trump won the election and praised his accomplishments as an entrepreneur and TV star, generating a good amount of controversy.

It seems politics also ultimately drove the two pals apart. Trump proclaimed at an Election Night 2016 rally that Brady told him he was voting for him, but Bündchen quickly denied it. In April 2017, Brady snubbed Trump by skipping the White House reception for the New England Patriots, the Super Bowl champions that year. Then, in a 2020 interview with Howard Stern, Brady said Trump dragging him into the political arena made him “uncomfortable” and suggested the president was always a little more into him than vice versa.

“He would call me after games: ‘I watched your game, Tom. Let’s play golf together.’ So 2003, 2004, that’s kind of the way it was,” Brady said. “He would golf, and then he became someone that — he would come up to our games and stand on the sideline. He would cheer for the Patriots.”

In the same interview, Brady revealed that, despite Trump’s desperate 16-year public campaign to make him his son-in-law, he and Ivanka Trump never even considered dating.

But the worst blow came in July 2021 during a White House celebration of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Super Bowl win. Brady didn’t just show up, he also joked with Joe Biden — twice — mocking Trump’s silly “Sleepy Joe” nickname and failure to admit he’d lost the 2020 election.

Now Brady is palling around with likely presidential contender DeSantis, who may be the biggest hurdle facing Trump in his quest to prove he’s a repeat champion like Brady. Is it possible the Florida governor is pestering his state’s biggest sports star without his consent? Yes. Could Brady just enjoy flirting with semi-fascism? Sure. But since Brady has been humiliating Trump for years now, we have to consider the possibility he’s plotting to use DeSantis for yet another passive-aggressive attack on his ex-friend. They’re already printing “DeSantis 2024: Make America Florida” hats, if Brady is looking for a good revenge dress.