Brady not concerned with teammates skipping White House visit

Tom Brady isn't concerned with the trend of his New England Patriots teammates declaring publicly they'll skip the team's upcoming visit to the White House.

Brady, who has called President Donald Trump a friend, was typically apolitical in an appearance on "PFT Live" on Tuesday.

"Everybody has their own choice," Brady told host Mike Florio. "There's certain years, like a couple years ago, I wanted to go and didn't get the opportunity based on the schedule - we didn't get told until I think like 10 days before we were going, and at that point I had something I'd been planning for months and couldn't get there."

Brady is referring to the Patriots' visit to Barack Obama's White House after their victory in Super Bowl XLIX, which he didn't attend.

Six current Patriots, including Martellus Bennett and LeGarrette Blount, have announced they won't visit Trump - with several of them suggesting they don't feel welcome at the White House because of their race.

"It really is a great experience," Brady said of his visits to George W. Bush's White House in the early 2000s. "Putting politics aside, it never was a political thing. At least, it never was to me. It meant you won a championship and you got to experience something cool with your team, with your teammates. Everyone has their own choice. It's an offseason. These days are valuable for everybody. You only get so much time with your family and friends, and if people don't want to go they don't want to go and that's their choice."