Musician Kid Rock has said that former President Donald Trump asked for his advice on US policy towards the Islamic State and North Korea.
Speaking to Tucker Carlson on Fox News on Monday, Kid Rock said that he was “uncancellable” during a discussion on cancel culture.
When speaking about the Covid-19 pandemic, he said, “f*** Fauci”, referring to Dr Anthony Fauci, the chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
“You speak for many when you say that,” Mr Carlson said.
The threat to Dr Fauci, 81, and his family has increased during the pandemic as he has guided the US public health response amid revulsion among some members of the public against the use of masks and vaccines.
Almost 972,000 people have died in the US as a result of the pandemic, according to figures collected by The New York Times.
Kid Rock has told The Guardian that he’s “definitely a Republican on fiscal issues and the military, but I lean to the middle on social issues”.
“I am no fan of abortion,” he added, “but it’s not up to a man to tell a woman what to do. As an ordained minister I don’t look forward to marrying gay people, but I’m not opposed to it.”
He said he “played Barack Obama’s inauguration [in 2009] even though I didn’t vote for him. I didn’t agree with his policies, but there was an exciting sense of change in the air. That promise hasn’t been fulfilled – the country is more divided than ever”.
In a 2017 photo, Kid Rock can be seen posing behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office of the White House alongside Mr Trump, fellow musician Ted Nugent, and the former Republican governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, who said she invited the musicians “because Jesus was booked”.
“I was there with [Mr Trump] one day when he ended the caliphate,” Kid Rock, 51, told Carlson about US efforts to take down Isis.
“He wanted to put out a tweet … I don’t like to speak out of school. I hope I’m not. But … the tweet was, and I’m paraphrasing, but it’s like, you know, ‘If you ever joined the caliphate, you know, trying to do this, you’re going to be dead,’” he said.
“He goes, ‘What do you think?’ [I said] ‘Awesome. I can’t add any better.’ But then it comes out and it’s … reworded and more political, to look politically correct. And just, ‘be afraid’,” he added.
Kid Rock, born Robert James Ritchie, said he once looked at maps with Mr Trump. “I’m like, you know, like, ‘Am I supposed to be in on this s***?’ Like I make dirty records sometimes. I do,” he told Fox News. “‘What do you think we should do about North Korea?’ I’m like, ‘What? I don’t think I’m qualified to answer this.’”
Following the 2017 meeting, Ted Nugent told The New York Times that the group talked about “health, fitness, food, rock’n’roll, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, secure borders, the history of the United States, guns, bullets, bows and arrows, North Korea, Russia and a half-dozen other issues”.
Kid Rock lauded Mr Trump for speaking “off the cuff”.
“See now, if you watch a Joe Biden interview, and you watch a Trump interview, there’s no comparison. And Trump speaks off the cuff,” he told Fox News. “I understand what it’s like, sometimes you get it wrong. But I would way rather hear somebody come from [the heart] and get it wrong once in a while.”
