Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) says he hopes New England quarterback Tom Brady retires.
“You’re asking the wrong guy — I’m a Dolphins fan,” Rubio quips in a TMZ video when asked about Brady’s future.
“I hope Brady retires so we can win the division,” he adds. “Every week he is not on the field is good news for the Miami Dolphins.”
{mosads}Rubio’s comments come after the National Football League announced on Tuesday it is upholding Brady’s four-game suspension for the upcoming 2015 season.
Brady was initially suspended in May for being aware of Patriots employees deflating footballs during a divisional championship game last season.
The incident — dubbed “Deflategate” in the media — has since overshadowed the Patriots’s Super Bowl victory last February.
The Patriots beat the Indianapolis Colts during the playoffs in January before besting the Seattle Seahawks a month later for their fourth title.
Brady proclaimed his innocence in a post on his Facebook account Wednesday morning.
“I did nothing wrong, and no one in the Patriots organization did either,” he wrote.
“There is no ‘smoking gun’ and this controversy is manufactured to distract from the fact they have zero evidence of wrongdoing,” Brady added.
Rubio is not the first lawmaker to weigh in on Brady’s suspension following the controversial incident.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) defended the star athlete during an interview with The Boston Herald on Thursday.
“Brady is a guy you want to hate — he’s tall, he’s good looking, he’s married to a beautiful woman, he’s an all-star athlete and you want to hate him but you can’t because he’s so nice,” Graham said, adding his suspension is “B.S.”
“If I’m president, I’ll make sure Tom Brady plays every game,” quipped Graham, a 2016 GOP presidential candidate.
Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) also backed Brady’s innocence by tweeting “#FreeBrady” after the quarterback’s announced punishment in May.