President Donald Trump said it was “terrible” that eight-time Super Bowl winner Bill Belichick was excluded from the National Football Hall of Fame in what was widely regarded by the sporting world as a major snub.
Trump sat down with NBC News for the president’s traditional yearly interview with the network hosting the Super Bowl and this year spoke to NBC’s Tom Llamas. Belichick, who won six of his eight Super Bowl victories as head coach of this year’s contending New England Patriots, was widely regarded as one of the most successful head coaches in NFL history before he retired from the league in 2024 and moved to join the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill as head coach of the school’s team.
In the interview, Trump suggested that Belichick’s tenure at UNC, which has been marred by embarrassing headlines about his girlfriend Jordon Hudson, may be the reason for Belichick’s exclusion, but said that the coach should have been elected on the first ballot.
“I thought it was terrible,” Trump told NBC. “I mean, he’s won so much, won so many Super Bowls. Great coach. Became a little bit controversial, I guess, after that, this little period after that. During it, he was just a great coach. I thought it was very inappropriate.”
“Well, you know, you have a great career and he has had a little bit of a controversial year and a half, two years maybe. But, what difference does that make? No, he should’ve — he should be in there right at the top,” the president continued.
He declined, both in his interview with NBC and in a Truth Social post, to say which team he was rooting for — or which team he thought would win.
“Well, I’ve watched them both during the season. And New England’s amazing, because to have a second coming, is pretty, pretty good. Quarterbacks, both good. Seattle’s an amazing comeback quarterback and the other one is just an amazing quarterback. I think it is going to be a great game, I like both areas of our country very much so I better not make any predictions, you get yourself in big trouble,” joked the president.
“New England has a great tradition of winning. Bob Kraft’s done a fantastic job,” he added.
A video post by the White House on X pretended to announce Trump’s pick, but was edited to cut out just before the president said a team’s name.
Belichick’s rejection on his first ballot in January rocked the NFL and led many to speculate that it happened due to a longstanding feud with Patriots owner Robert Kraft, though the actual motivations of most Hall of Fame judges are shrouded in mystery. Others have suggested that the former Patriots coach’s legacy is tainted by scandal, including a 2007 incident where the Patriots were caught filming signals being sent by opposing teams on the sidelines to their players on the field.
The incident cost the Patriots a first-round pick in the NFL draft, and Donald Trump was involved, according to an ESPN report, in helping Kraft try to shoo away a U.S. Senate investigation spawned by the Patriots’ actions.
Last week, the Hall of Fame made it official: Kraft, like Belichick, will not be joining the 2026 class at all, first ballot or not. Kraft released a statement after the first round of voting condemning Belichick’s exclusion and (apparently) seeking to dispel rumors that there were hard feelings at play.
Kraft said of his former coach: “As head coach of the New England Patriots for more than two decades, he set the standard for on-field excellence, preparation, and sustained success in the free agency and salary cap era of the National Football League.
“He is the greatest coach of all time and he unequivocally deserves to be a unanimous first-ballot Pro Football Hall of Famer.”
