Trump Kraft
Donald Trump (left) chatted with New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft (right) prior to the AFC Divisional NFL playoff football game against the Jacksonville Jaguars in Foxborough, Mass., Jan. 12, 2008. Trump and Patriots quarterback Tom Brady reportedly first met in 2002 and since become golf buddies. "It'd be great," Brady said Wednesday of a Trump presidency. Reuters

With New Hampshire being a key early state for GOP presidential candidates, Republican hopeful Donald Trump received a quasi-endorsement Wednesday from someone very important to much of the New England population: Tom Brady. The New England Patriots quarterback backed a potential Trump presidency, saying, "It'd be great," according to the Los Angeles Times.

Brady's support of Trump shouldn't come as much of a surprise, however. The two have had a cozy relationship for years, and last week Brady confirmed that a familiar piece of headgear photographed in his locker was, indeed, a Trump campaign "Make America Great Again" hat. Brady even called the real estate mogul-turned-GOP-candidate a friend who has done "amazing" things, according to WEEI in Boston.

Brady doubled down Wednesday with his comments supporting the idea of a Trump presidency. The move came after the billionaire GOP hopeful lauded the quarterback after a federal judge vacated Brady's four-game suspension Sept. 3. Brady was suspended by the NFL for a purported role in a scheme to intentionally deflate footballs to gain a competitive advantage in last season's AFC Championship game.

“Congrats to Tom Brady on yet another great victory,” Trump tweeted after the decision. “Tom is my friend and a total winner!”

Brady said that he has known the former host of the reality television show "The Apprentice" for more than a decade. When asked early last week about the "Make America Great Again" hat in his locker, which appeared after Trump threw his support to the quarterback, Brady explained it had been sent to him by the candidate through Patriots owner Robert Kraft. He then went on to tell how he met the candidate who used to be involved in the Miss Universe and Miss USA pageants.

“I’ve known him since 2002 where I judged one of his beauty pageants, imagine that," Brady said during a weekly appearance on a WEEI radio show. "I was a judge at a Miss USA pageant in 2002, so I’ve known him a long time. He always gives me a call on different types of motivational speeches and at different times. Now that he’s running for president, he sent me a hat, and he gave it to [Kraft] a couple of weeks ago so it found a place in my locker.”

Since meeting in 2002, the two have spent a lot of hours on the golf course, although a bit less recently because family life has overtaken course time, Brady said. Trump owns a number of high-end courses and is a "helluva lot of fun to play golf with," Brady said.

But when asked last week if he would vote for Trump Brady answered, “I don’t know. Am I going to vote for him? That’s a very good question,” according to WEEI.

This week's answer was still a bit vague and perhaps not a full endorsement of the outspoken candidate who is scheduled to participate in Wednesday's GOP debate. The quarterback said he had no advice for Trump concerning the debate while calling the hat a nice keepsake. But if nothing else, Brady got a good laugh by the prospects of how a Trump presidency White House would be decorated.

"There’d be a putting green on the White House lawn. I know that," Brady said while laughing, according to WEEI.

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