President Donald Trump has long been known for his connections to and references to the sports world, and he tried to make another sports analogy in an interview with ABC’s David Muir Wednesday night. This time around, though, he brought up Peyton Manning rather than Tom Brady.
When discussing the applause his controversial weekend speech at the CIA’s memorial wall received, which some intelligence sources have said came from Trump’s own supporters rather than intelligence agency employees, Trump compared it to applause Peyton Manning got after winning the Super Bowl last year:
President Trump on his remarks at the CIA, via the @ABC transcript pic.twitter.com/u4qt0XNYJq
— “Mark Berman” (@markberman) January 26, 2017
There’s so much that’s confusing there. Is he talking about a Super Bowl viewing party at the CIA that ended with applause for Manning? I mean, that’s at least possible, and that makes more sense than implying a relatively-small group of intelligence employees somehow made more noise than the entire stadium full of NFL fans (many of them Broncos’ diehards) that actually saw Manning win that Super Bowl in person.
That also makes more sense than the idea of Manning addressing the CIA. Although, you never know; maybe he can start doing commercials for them! Maybe Papa John’s is really a propaganda ploy! Even if it’s true that this was the biggest standing ovation at the CIA since last year’s Super Bowl, that might not be that impressive, too; we don’t know if there’s regular cause for standing ovations there. Maybe this was the only one since then.
In any case, this is the second story involving Manning and Trump from the last couple of days (Manning is also reportedly set to speak at a joint Republican Senate and House retreat next week). Maybe Trump’s favorite quarterback is switching from Brady to Manning. This is also the second crazy sports story of the day involving Trump; the previous one is that Trump reportedly told House and Senate leaders Monday his concerns about voter fraud come from a story Bernhard Langer told about not being able to vote (Langer is a German citizen, and cannot legally vote in U.S. presidential elections). Keep in mind that we’ve seen everyone from Bobby Knight to Mike Ditka to Lou Holtz linked with Trump before, too. The sports connections here may just be beginning.
[Mark Berman on Twitter]
