Tom Brady and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are on texting terms, says GOP nominee for Wisconsin governor

OCONOMOWOC, Wis. — Tom Brady, the seven-time Super Bowl champion, has for years been the subject of public affection from former President Donald Trump.

But according to Tim Michels, the Republican nominee for Wisconsin governor, Brady is now on texting terms with another Republican seen as a White House contender: Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.

DeSantis attended a Green Bay Packers football game last month and spent part of the game texting with Brady, according to Michels, who hosted the Florida governor in Green Bay and told supporters in Wisconsin last week about their time together. Brady first expressed support for Trump in 2015, when he was quarterback of the New England Patriots. He signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2020.

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

DeSantis, who on the day of the Packers game had appeared at a rally for Michels and Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., “had never been to Lambeau Field before and he wanted to go,” 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?’”

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.”

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

What DeSantis and Brady were discussing by text, beyond the governor’s location at that moment, remains a mystery. Representatives for Brady did not respond to requests for comment. A DeSantis spokesperson declined to comment.

There’s a bit to unpack here.

In September 2015, Brady was among the first mainstream celebrities to promote Trump’s presidential candidacy. He was spotted with a red “Make America Great Again” hat in his locker and said “it would be great” if Trump, a longtime golfing partner, took the White House.

But Brady — perhaps at the suggestion of his wife, Gisele Bündchen, who said she and her husband did not vote for Trump in 2016 — later kept his distance. When the Patriots won the Super Bowl in 2017, Brady did not attend the subsequent reception at the White House.

Brady and Bündchen have in recent weeks reportedly hired divorce lawyers.

Then there’s the idea that DeSantis, a Harvard- and Yale-educated former college athlete who has privately teased a 2024 presidential run, needed help spelling the name of the most storied stadium in the NFL — and a hallowed place for many voters in a critical presidential battleground state. At least DeSantis didn’t need help pronouncing Lambeau, a name that has tripped up past presidential aspirants.

For Michels, whose campaign also did not respond to inquiries about his remarks, it is good but perhaps risky politics to seek a friendship with Rodgers, himself a Super Bowl-winning quarterback (albeit only once, to the consternation of much of Wisconsin) who is unquestionably the most popular figure in the state.

Rodgers, like Brady, has dabbled in politics with some complications. In 2011, he supported unionized public school teachers in their fight with Gov. Scott Walker. Later, he said quarterback Colin Kaepernick belonged in the NFL after Trump called for his banishment for kneeling during the pregame playing of the national anthem to protest police violence against Black people.

But last year, Rodgers, who refused to be vaccinated against COVID-19, became a source of misinformation about the vaccines. That made him a hero to Wisconsin’s fellow vaccine skeptics, in particular Johnson, who thanked him “for his courage in defending personal freedom and health autonomy.”

This month, Johnson campaigned with Packers fans while wearing a Rodgers jersey.

Michels, who is locked in a tight battle with Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, was with Johnson outside Lambeau Field, although he was conspicuous in his lack of Packers gear. A local Democrat pointed out that Michels, a Wisconsin native who spent more than a decade living in Connecticut and the New York City borough of Manhattan before moving back home to run for governor, was wearing a green vest that was the shade worn by the visiting New York Jets, not the hometown Packers.

c.2022 The New York Times Company