Donald Trump and Bill Belichick are facing the same problem

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The news, in brief …

• Trump’s fight against Harvard used antisemitism as “smokescreen,” judge says

  The Trump administration was accused of hiding its true intentions in its ongoing fight against Harvard. Read more.

• “The perpetrators are being protected”: Epstein survivors say they’ll make their “own list”

  Trump called the women's pleas "irrelevant" and a "Democrat hoax." Read more.

• Newsmax sues Fox News over alleged “monopoly” on conservative news

  Fox News said Newsmax's failure to find an audience was not its concern. Read more.

• House Dems move to censure Rep. Mills after alleged assault

  The resolution cites alleged assault and raises questions about Mills’s military record. Read more.

• Florida plans to ban all vaccine mandates

  Democratic lawmakers said that it was a "great day for polio" in the nation's third most populous state. Read more.

• “Some recognition that we’re in trouble”: GOP scrambles to rebrand Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill”

  The rebranding effort comes as GOP lawmakers trying to sell the legislation face angry town halls. Read more.

Make me smarter …

Trump, who weaponized age-based mockery, is now its target

The president is alive — but questions and conspiracy theories are still being raised about his health. Read more.

The man, the myth …

Bill Belichick’s name is guaranteed to loom large in football history. The coach spent 25 years at the helm of the New England Patriots, building a team that won the Super Bowl six times and an equally important mythos around the way his team played the game.

That “Patriot Way” was given endless credit over the team’s decades of dominance. This was a team driven by a pure love of the game, a team that ate its veggies and said its prayers. Commentators rushed to tie the Patriots' success back to a lineage of leatherheads who owned the gridiron before things like high scores and highlight-reel catches came along to make the game remotely interesting. They continued to do so even as quarterback Tom Brady put up dazzling and thoroughly modern stat lines Sunday after interminable Sunday.

The inevitability of the team’s success and Belichick’s effective brand management combined to make a myth strong enough to hold up to allegations of cheating and the team’s immediate collapse once Brady decided he looked better in Creamsicle Orange. Six Lombardi trophies had given rise to a truism: The Patriot Way and, by extension, Bill Belichick could not fail; they could only be failed.

The circular logic that bolstered Belichick’s legacy rolled full speed off a cliff on Monday. The Hall of Famer took to the sidelines to lead the University of North Carolina’s Tar Heels to their worst opening day drubbing in program history. His team stumbled through a loss to Texas Christian University’s Horned Frogs that was somehow worse than the final score of 48-14 suggests. If UNC’s opener was a harbinger of the season to come, Belichick may finally have to face a harsh truth: another Tom Brady isn’t walking through that door.

Nothing about President Donald Trump screams “athletics” or even “leadership,” but he’s found himself in a remarkably similar position to the ball coach in his second term.

Like Belichick, he had no reason to return to his current position. His legacy had been secured in the minds of his supporters years ago. But he’d begun to believe the story supporters told about him, buying into the idea that he was a uniquely powerful individual whose philosophy would single-handedly right the nation. His first term had proven that only he could do it, and four years of adoring crowds in the interim did nothing to disabuse him of that notion.

Trump’s second term has been notably bolder, crueler and all around stupider than his first. He’s taken a hacksaw to the ranks of dedicated civil servants who keep the federal government humming, and surrounded himself with inexperienced yes men and women who will bullrush any problem the president points at. Trump’s problem arises when it becomes clear that his lackeys don’t know what they’re doing.

His second term has been defined by regular hamfisted attacks on the Constitution that are quickly slapped down by the courts. Outside of the Trump-friendly Supreme Court, his representatives’ arguments are being laughed out of the room. His hand-picked military leaders are oafishly leaking secrets to journalists. His advisers are rah-rahing an agenda that’s causing a slow-motion economic collapse.

The question for both Belichick and Trump is clear.. How many times can a man be shoved to the ground and forced to eat dirt before he starts to question his own immovability? How long can the them in their minds hold up to the cold, hard facts?

What do you think? Who is the Drake Maye of Trump’s second term? Would he settle for the steady hand of a Mac Jones or Bailey Zappe? Sound off in the comments.

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Before you go …

Dems strike tougher tone on Trump’s DC takeover: It’s racism

Some Democrats accuse the president of lawlessness and distraction, but others step up the rhetoric. Read more.

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