By Bo Erickson
MEMPHIS, March 23 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump has met royalty throughout the world, but in Memphis, Tennessee on Monday, he was wistful about one he never got to know: Elvis Presley, the King of Rock and Roll.
“I knew Frank Sinatra, I knew most of them,” Trump said while touring Presley’s estate, Graceland. “Unfortunately, I never met Elvis. That would be one that I would have liked a lot. I do like his music.”
Trump was in Memphis touting his surge of federal law enforcement to combat high crime rates.
“Elvis would be very happy about that,” Trump said about the drop in crime, pausing to repeat a common refrain during the trip — “I love Elvis!” — as the singer’s cover of “How Great Thou Art” played overhead.
The president acknowledged his passion for Presley stems, in part, from his age. Presley was born in 1935, just 11 years before Trump in 1946.
“All my life I have heard about Graceland,” Trump told his guides. “I was around with Elvis in his semi-prime, at least, right?”
Trump shared the moment with several administration officials, including U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi.
“You are a big fan of Elvis,” Trump said to Bondi.
“My mother was, especially,” she replied.
Trump in his first term awarded Presley, who died in 1977 at age 42, a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom.
On Monday, Trump marveled at the tour guides’ facts and Presley’s design choices throughout the house, leaning in to examine Presley’s green military helmet and sounding shocked when told the singer’s natural hair color was blonde.
“Really? I didn’t know. That’s great,” Trump said.
As the tour went on, the president offered his own analysis of the singer’s life.
“He loved his mom, so much. He really loved his mom. When his mom went, it was very hard for him, right?” Trump asked the tour guides.
In Presley’s den, called the Jungle Room for its animal print designs and hand-carved white pine wood furniture, the real estate developer-turned-president complimented the aesthetics.
“He was way before his time, look, he put carpet on the ceiling,” Trump said.
When asked to sign a replica black guitar from Presley’s Hawaii concert, Trump called the request a “big honor” and said he needed to practice his signature.
“Has anyone tested this pen yet? Give me a piece of paper just to make sure at what level the ink is. It’s a lot easier to do it that way than ruin the guitar,” Trump said.
“You never know, these are hard to sign, but that came out pretty good. Now Biden couldn’t do that, he’d have to send it out.”
Told by guides that Elvis respected the office of the presidency and law enforcement, Trump responded, “Did he really?”
Reporters asked Trump to name his favorite Elvis song.
“‘Hurt’ is great,” Trump said about Presley’s 1976 love song, shortly after one of his tour guides mentioned the song. “He did nothing bad.”
(Reporting by Bo Erickson in Memphis, Tennessee, Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Michael Perry)
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