Rapper Kid Rock – who performed at Donald Trump’s celebratory “Make America Great Again Victory Rally” on Sunday ahead of his inauguration on Monday – has revealed details of a surprise phone call he had with the president-elect on Friday.
Trump will become the first president since Grover Cleveland to enter the White House for a non-consecutive second term, with the ceremony driven indoors for the first time since Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration in 1985 by the punishing sub-zero temperatures currently blasting Washington DC.
The incoming 47th president warmed up for the swearing-in with a rally-style gathering at DC’s Capital One Arena, at which Rock, Billy Ray Cyrus and The Village People were among the musical guests.
Trailing his appearance beforehand on Fox News’s Fox and Friends Weekend on Sunday, Rock (real name Robert Ritchie) revealed he had a surprising call with the president-elect late last week.
“Friday morning I got a call from the president and Melania [Trump] and it was kind of mind-blowing, I’ve tried to leave him alone, he’s got a lot on his plate, I would think, right now,” he told the morning show’s hosts Steve Doocy, Brian Kilmeade, Ainsley Earhardt and Lawrence Jones.
“He called and he goes, ‘Did the Secret Service really tell you that you can’t use strippers?’” Rock said, alluding to a comment he had made earlier in the week about his upcoming performance.
“No, sir, I was just joking around,” he recalled answering Trump.
“Ah, that’s funny,” the new commander-in-chief replied, according to the rapper.
Kid Rock also claimed Trump had consulted him on whether or not to move Monday’s ceremony indoors in light of the extreme weather hitting DC.
“‘Let me ask you a question,’” he said Trump had said to him.
“‘People could really have a bad experience, maybe some people could get hurt, our first responders – what do you think about me moving the inauguration indoors?’”
“I’m like – uhhhhh,” Rock said, pointing at himself and recalling his reaction of confusion and panic as the hosts laughed.
The decision to shift the ceremony into the Capitol rotunda prompted a hectic last minute rejigging of security arrangements, making it all the more surprising, if true, that the president-elect would take soundings from Rock, a performer known for such tracks as “American Bad Ass”, “You Never Met A Motherf***er Quite Like Me” and “Redneck Paradise” but hardly qualified to advise on the subject.
Rock was last on Fox late last week to mock former first lady Michelle Obama for snubbing Trump’s ceremony, telling host Jesse Watters: “She seems a little angry.”
He added: “I would kindly remind her that years back when [Barack] Obama was first elected, I did not vote for him.
“But they asked me to play the inauguration. And I played it and I went.
“I had a good time. I went out of respect for the president so I would kindly remind Michelle about that.”
