When you get a chance to meet a president, you take it.
Jelly Roll recently had the opportunity to meet President-Elect Donald Trump recently, when the “Son Of A Sinner” singer was seen on video greeting Trump, Elon Musk and Kid Rock at UFC 309.
🚨BREAKING: LEGENDARY SINGER JELLY ROLL JUST GREETED PRESIDENT TRUMP WITH A MASSIVE SMILE AT UFC 309!
He also greeted Elon Musk, Kid Rock, and Don Jr.
This is HUGE!🔥 pic.twitter.com/6TEIBEc8ZG
— Bo Loudon (@BoLoudon) November 17, 2024
And honestly, with any other president, chances are this would have just been seen as somebody greeting a former/future president, like most normal people would do if they had the chance. But because it was Trump, naturally it set off a firestorm from people who were upset that Jelly Roll would even speak to him.
Of course simply saying hello to Trump doesn’t mean that somebody is a Trump supporter, or that they voted for him in the election. But you know how the internet is today. Guilty by association. Can’t normalize Trump, or whatever it is they’re saying.
Jelly Roll was quickly accused of being a Trump supporter and having voting for the Republican candidate, accusations which he shot down by reminding people that as a convicted felon, he doesn’t even have the right to vote in his home state of Tennessee.
And during a recent appearance alongside his wife, Bunnie Xo, on her Dumb Blonde podcast, Jelly set the record straight on why he decided to meet President Trump:
“There’s not a chance in hell I’m not going to meet the president-elect. If I would have got a call to meet Joe Biden at any point, I would have stopped what I was doing to go meet him. That’s the active president. I wouldn’t have cared what people thought, even what I think about his policies.
I don’t hide behind the ‘I’m not political’ stuff. I’m not political…
I’m also one of the old-school dudes.. I like to talk about things I’m passionate about. With that, I like to know about them. I don’t know enough about politics to act like I know anything that’s going on, what anybody’s standing for policy-wise. I genuinely don’t know.”
Jelly says that he wasn’t raised in a home where his parents put a big emphasis on voting:
“They did push, ‘Respect our president’ on me though. My father was real big on, ‘You don’t disrespect…that’s the hardest job in the world, respect whoever has it.’”
And he describes the moment that Trump walked into the arena and he knew that he wanted to meet him:
“I’ve had some bone-chilling moments…I don’t care who you are, if you were in that building, the hair on your skin stood up…And you looked and all you’re watching is the President-Elect who just got elected 8 days ago walking in with his entire cabinet with him almost…
It was powerful, dude. I don’t care which side of the aisle you’re on…
When Trump walks right by me I’m like, ‘He don’t know who I am.’ So right then I was like, ‘Well, damn, I’m not gonna get to meet the president.’”
Luckily, a member of UFC CEO Dana White’s team ensured that Jelly would get the opportunity to meet Trump:
“What you don’t see in the video was he gives me the Trump point…He goes, bring it in. And I start walking over, I’m like, my heart is…
I go to shake his hand, I put my hand on his shoulder, which right then I was like, I hope Secret Service don’t choke me out or something, I know you’re not supposed to touch him. And he puts his hand on my shoulder…and he’s like, ‘I love Save Me.’
He’s like, ‘You’re doing incredible things.’”
And ultimately, he says he has no regrets about meeting Trump, calling the whole thing a cool experience:
“But yeah, so meeting President Trump was cool. Ultimately I don’t really care, any blowback I get about it. The truth is, it was really cool to meet the president.”
My favorite quote from the entire episode, though, came from Bunnie:
“I think the government’s a sham.”
Amen.