{"id":477589,"date":"2026-10-26T23:36:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T23:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/477589\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T23:36:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T23:36:12","slug":"report-trump-to-campaign-with-former-texas-football-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/477589\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Trump to campaign with former Texas football stars"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With the November midterms drawing near, President\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.chron.com\/news\/houston-texas\/article\/trump-administration-asks-supreme-court-allow-big-22488137.php\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Donald Trump<\/a> appears to be pulling out all the stops to promote Texas Attorney General\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.chron.com\/news\/article\/james-talarico-ken-paxton-tmz-22487596.php\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ken <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.chron.com\/news\/article\/james-talarico-ken-paxton-tmz-22487596.php\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Paxton<\/a>&#8216;s bid for U.S. Senate. His newest allies on the campaign trail? Three former Texas college football standouts, according to a report published Monday by\u00a0Axios.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/10\/26\/trump-sports-texas-midterms-young-men\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Axios&#8217; Alex Isenstadt<\/a> reported Monday that former Texas A&amp;M quarterback <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chron.com\/sports\/college\/article\/johnny-manziel-college-gameday-21284508.php\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Johnny Manziel<\/a>, former Texas Longhorns signal caller <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chron.com\/sports\/college\/article\/colt-mccoy-ut-commencement-speaker-2026-22155679.php\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Colt McCoy<\/a> and former New England Patriots star and Texas Tech alum Danny\u00a0Amendola will join the president on the campaign trail on Tuesday in a multi-stop campaign blitz targeting Lubbock and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chron.com\/news\/houston-texas\/article\/houston-native-amya-henry-kiii-22474681.php\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Corpus Christi<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The team-up may be surprising on its face, however, at least two of the former gridiron greats joining Trump this week have history with the president. In January of 2017 Manziel deactivated his Twitter (now X) account shortly after posting words of advice for the then-first-term president.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Yo @POTUS even I know to stay away from the notifications section on twitter. S&#8211;t\u00a0will drive you crazy, lead the country and let them hate,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/JManziel2\/status\/823614425621876736\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow\">Manziel wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Manziel later reactivated his X account, and in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/sports\/johnny-manziel-wants-drake-new-podcast-promises-not-ask-about-kendrick-lamar-beef.amp?utm_source=chatgpt.com\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">2024 interview with FOX News<\/a>, remarked that he didn&#8217;t see himself getting involved in politics.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Politics is probably something I will never get involved in,&#8221; Manziel said in the wide-ranging interview.<\/p>\n<p>Amendola&#8217;s connection to Trump can be publicly traced back to the Patriots&#8217; April 2017 visit to the White House. During the visit, which\u00a0Amendola skipped in order to attend a friend&#8217;s funeral, the president praised the wide receiver&#8217;s play against the Atlanta Falcons in New England&#8217;s come-from-behind Super Bowl LI victory. Amendola tweeted his thanks to the president, but later <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/danny-amendola-deletes-tweet-thanking-president-trump-shout-132519129.html\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">deleted the post<\/a> in the face of digital backlash.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Thanks for the shout out @realDonaldTrump! in the GYM! Funeral service for my boy Jaimie Carrillo tonight! RIP-JC,&#8221; Amendola wrote.<\/p>\n<p>McCoy&#8217;s connection to Trump is less straightforward. McCoy retired from the NFL in 2024 and began <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dmagazine.com\/commercial-real-estate\/2026\/09\/meet-the-dallas-500-colt-mccoy-hpi\/?utm_source=chatgpt.com\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">working in commercial real estate<\/a> in Texas\u00a0in 2025.\u00a0Texas Governor Greg Abbott <a href=\"https:\/\/thedailytexan.com\/2026\/02\/02\/what-colt-mccoy-wants-to-do-for-texas-higher-education\/\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">appointed the former Longhorns star<\/a> to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) in January. The THECB is a state agency overseeing and coordinating higher education policy across Texas.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>As for Trump, this week marks the president&#8217;s fourth trip to Texas in two months as the state&#8217;s increasingly uncertain Senate race between\u00a0Paxton and his\u00a0Democratic opponent James\u00a0Talarico nears its crescendo. Election day is November 3.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the November midterms drawing near, President\u00a0Donald Trump appears to be pulling out all the stops to promote&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[88494,16469,1704,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-477589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-chronpolitics","tag-chronsports","tag-chronstaff","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}