During the Tuesday broadcast of ESPN2’s “First Take,” ESPN contributor Will Cain reacted to New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady being asked at a press conference to defend the vulgar comments his longtime friend and GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump made in a private conversation with Billy Bush in 2005.
Cain laid into the media’s handling of Brady’s relationship with Trump, calling it an “embarrassment” and “inappropriate.”
A partial transcript of Cain’s comments as follows:
I think it’s embarrassing that the media thinks that [Brady] should be held accountable. Tom Brady is a private citizen who has his own political beliefs. He hasn’t particularly advocated for Donald Trump. He hasn’t put himself out there. He’s friends with Donald Trump. He had his “Make America Great Again” hat in his locker. He’s like every other private citizen — in fact, he’s done way less advocating than you could name dozens, hundreds of celebrities who have cut videos on one side or the other of this election.
[F]or some reason, the media feels like Tom Brady should be drug out, brow beat, forced to explain every Donald Trump opinion, every Donald Trump statement, because he has a relationship with the guy. And I think it’s an embarrassment at this point that you take a private citizen, but public figure, and make him accountable for somebody else’s opinions. The big question is, why do you care? Why do you care? This is a football player. This is a quarterback of the New England Patriots. Why do you care what he believes? And you don’t care like, “Oh, it’s interesting, it’s kind of fascinating.” You care like, “Oh, he must be held accountable.” That’s the kind of care you seem to have about this, and it’s inappropriate. It’s wrong. You don’t do that to private citizens.
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