There were a notable number of New England Patriots missing from the White House visit the Patriots took Wednesday to celebrate their victory in Super Bowl LI. It wasn't quite as bad as the New York Times would have you believe, but there were still a number of guys who skipped the trip to Washington.
Among them were Tom Brady (who wasn't there for family reasons) and a slew of guys who skipped because they do not agree with some of the political stances taken by President Donald Trump. That includes defensive lineman Alan Branch, who appeared on CNN with Don Lemon on Wednesday and lashed out at Trump's comments on women.
"I've been in the NFL for a whole decade and played in college football ... all my life, you know. I've never heard anyone talk like that so aggressively and disrespectively towards women like that at all," Branch said, referring to a notable line uttered by Trump in an old recording of him and Billy Bush in a studio trailer.
"Maybe it happened in a different locker room, but I would hope that anyone who has respect for their parents, their mom, their sisters, their daughters, you know, would stop that, because if anyone said anything close to that near me I'm shutting that down right now."
After the old tapes leaked, Trump called those comments "locker room talk." Branch clearly disagrees with that statement. Branch specifically said that he found some of Trump's comments "disgusting" and that is why he skipped the trip.
"So, I mean, it's just disgusting the way he talks about women. And I can't deal with it. And that's why I have no interest in going to shake his hand," Branch added. "I go back home and look my daughters in the eye and I don't want them to view me in a different light just because I did that."
There's no debating the matter here: the comments made by Trump at the time were lewd, vulgar and inappropriate. Trump apologized for them when the tapes emerged, and ultimately did not cost him the election.
