Trump Claims Bill Belichick Gave Him a Hug and Kiss to Reconcile After Declining Presidential Medal of Freedom
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Donald Trump was reportedly upset when Bill Belichick declined to accept the Presidential Medal of Freedom last year, but the New England Patriots head coach has since reconciled in a sweet way.
Trump attempted to bestow the Presidential of Medal of Freedom on Belichick shortly before leaving office, but the Patriots coach politely declined the honor in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.
The former president blasted the Patriots coach during an April 2021 interview with New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns for an upcoming book.
According to an excerpt obtained by Yahoo Sports columnist Charles Robinson, Trump claimed Belichick “chickened out” by not accepting the honor. Despite his initial angst, Trump says Belichick later kissed and made up with him on the golf course.
Trump bragged that it was not only Republican politicians who had crawled back to his side after briefly rejecting him after January 6.
One of the rejections that had bothered him the most had come from Bill Belichick, the legendary coach of the New England Patriots who had declined Trump’s attempt to grant him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In the immediate aftermath of the riot, it was just not possible for him to appear with Trump. Back then, Trump said, Belichick had “chickened out.” But get this, Trump confided: The coach had just a week earlier been playing golf at Trump’s nearby course. Trump had run into him there on the second-to-last hole. “He came up to me on the seventeenth,” the former commander-in-chief recounted with relish.
Stretching credulity for anyone familiar with Belichick’s gruff persona, Trump claimed: “He hugged me and kissed me.”
Trump once claimed he’d be willing to seek military advice from Belichick, but that was months before he was publicly rejected by the head coach. Would the former president still confer with someone he now describes as a chicken?
Trump awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom 24 times during his tenure in office, with 14 of the recipients being athletes including Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus and Mariano Rivera.
