Peyton Manning, the two-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback, responded to a question on why he golfed with President Donald Trump.
“I heard Arnold Palmer say one time, ‘If the president of the United States ever asks you to play golf, you do it,'” Manning told Jimmy Kimmel, according to Broncos Wire. “It’s a no-brainer. It was a fantastic experience.”
He said that accepting the golf invitation had nothing to do with politics—but it had more to do with the experience of golfing with Trump.
“I was in town and the White House called and said, ‘Hey, the president would like to play golf with you on Sunday, are you available?'” Manning told Kimmel.
“I’ve had a chance to play with President Bush before—if President Obama or President Clinton asked me, I’d be there in a heartbeat,” the retired quarterback added. “It was just the experience of playing with the office that was pretty cool to me. And I think it would have been almost un-American to have said no.”
Manning reportedly spoke at a GOP retreat right before Trump was inaugurated earlier this year.
He added in the Kimmel interview that a lot of people told him not to golf with Trump.
Manning, 41, retired from the NFL in 2016 after winning his second Super Bowl with the Denver Broncos.
He’s slated to host the ESPY awards on ABC on Wednesday night.
