President Donald Trump recently suggested that he’d be willing to seek military advice from Patriots coach Bill Belichick. Belichick responded during a Monday appearance on WEEI radio in Boston.
“A very nice compliment,” Belichick said. “I appreciate that. I am not sure -- I am kind of a navy guy, so I don’t know about being a general. I’d prefer being an admiral. I am flattered by that. But I’ll just stick to coaching football.”
Said Trump to radio host Hugh Hewitt last week: “You know, if I ever had a military battle, I’d call up Belichick and say what do you think? What do you think? Give me a couple of ideas.”
Trump also said that Belichick would “be as good as any general out there.”
Belichick backed Trump in 2016, sending Trump a letter of support close to the election and, after Trump asked if he could read the letter publicly, provided something even stronger.
Trump continues to chastise athletes for kneeling during the national anthem. He said over the weekend that “I’m not going to be helping” the NFL if kneeing happens in 2020. It undoubtedly will; if that prompts the President to attack NFL players again, it could result in more pointed and repetitive questions for Belichick than whether he’d be a general or an admiral under the 45th Commander-in-Chief’s command.