President Joe Biden, 78, welcomed the Super Bowl LV champions The Tampa Bay Buccaneers to the White House on Tuesday July 20. When Bucs quarterback Tom Brady, 43, took the mic to thank Biden for hosting the team, he made many references to the 2020 election and former President Donald Trump’s, 75, lies about the election. Biden was clearly amused at his hilarious speech.
Tom made his first election reference when joking about the Buccaneers’ tumultuous season and doubts that fans may have had that they would even be in the running for the Lombardi Trophy. “It didn’t look great there at one point. We were 7 and 5, struggling a little bit, as the president alluded to, but we found our rhythm. We got on a roll. Not a lot of people think that we could’ve won. In fact, I think about 40 percent of the people still don’t think we won. You understand that, Mr. President?,” Tom quipped.
Biden laughed and said that he completely understands that feeling. Besides the election fraud bit, Tom also joked about one of his own fumbles during the season. “We had a game in Chicago where I forgot what down it was. I lost track of one down in 21 years of playing, and they started calling me ‘Sleepy Tom.’ Why would they do that to me?” he said, referencing Trump’s nickname for the president “Sleepy Joe.”
Before bringing up the Super Bowl champion, Biden was incredibly complimentary to the Bucs and said that with the Tampa Bay Lightning winning the Stanley Cup, Tampa ought to be dubbed “The City of Champions.” Of course, Biden had a joke of his own, referencing the fact that he’s the oldest person to ever be elected president, just as Tom and Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians were the oldest QB and coach, respectively, to win a Super Bowl. “A lot has been made about the fact that we have the oldest coach to ever win the Super Bowl and the oldest quarterback to win the Super Bowl. I’ll tell you right now. You won’t hear any jokes about that from me. As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing wrong with being the oldest guy to make it to the mountain top. That’s how I look at it,” he said.
The president also offered plenty of praise to the Tampa quarterback, noting how impressive Tom’s career has been, both with the Bucs and the New England Patriots. “Tom, you’ve got about 20 more years left. You’re just about the best ever to play, and making it to 10 Super Bowls in the past 20 years, that ain’t bad, man. I tell you what, we’ve never seen anything like you in the game,” he said.
Before Tom wrapped up his speech, he mentioned that he was looking forward to the football season starting and was hoping for another Super Bowl victory in 2022, although he may not celebrate quite like he did after Super Bowl LV. “We’re not going to throw the Super Bowl trophy this time,” he said.
He also said that the Bucs were going to have a friendly game of football against 11 White House interns out on the lawn. Even though it’s NFL players versus amateurs, Tom said that the Super Bowl champs wouldn’t go easy on the team of interns. “We intend to run it up on you guys,” he joked. Besides the friendly competition, the Bucs also gave the president his own jersey, with the number 46 on the back.