Anyone want a Presidential Medal?

Donald Trump is desperately trying to find a National Football League coach to accept the increasingly unprestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom after the New England Patriots’ Bill Belichick turned down the award.

“There’s got to be another head coach out there who admits he still likes me and wants the medal,” the president said after Pete Carroll of the Seattle Seahawks and Sean Payton of the New Orleans Saints also rejected the offer.

Belichick said in a statement released by the Patriots that it had been rejected because of “the tragic events of last week.”

But a Patriots assistant coach who spoke upon condition of anonymity quoted Belichick as saying: “I meant the tragic events of last month, when we dropped three games in a row and missed the playoffs for the first time since ’08. That made me a loser and the last thing I need is to be reminded of that by getting a medal from another loser.”

Carroll, whose Seahawks were upset by the Los Angeles Rams in a wild-card playoff game, said he didn’t think he deserved the award, and Payton said he was too busy preparing for the playoff against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to accept a medal.

But Trump said he wanted to honor Belichick, and then Payton and Carroll, because “they’re my kind of winners, guys who’ll do anything to win. I mean, think of it. Bill had Spygate and Deflategate, and Sean had Bountygate, and Pete had – did they call that a ‘gate’ as well? – all those money scandals at Southern Cal and … I know. Reggiebushgate.”

This morning, a White House spokesman said Trump also had called Jay Monahan 18 times without success in an attempt to present the Presidential Medal of Freedom to the commissioner of the PGA Tour.