Lee Greenwood: I'm Trump's court jester — and I do it for free
'He said, 'I'm gonna do this again. I will call upon you,'' Greenwood said.
Unlike the many musicians who have distanced themselves from Trump, Greenwood, 82, has embraced his partnership with the president.
Played at every Trump rally, God Bless the USA has become the definitive anthem for the Make America Great Again (Maga) movement.
In Washington bars frequented by White House staffers, the jukebox inevitably switches over to Greenwood's 1984 classic at a certain stage in the evening.
The chorus goes: 'I'm proud to be an American where at least I know I'm free/ And I won't forget the men who died, who gave that right to me/ And I'd gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today/ 'Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land/ God bless the USA.'
Like the slogan 'Make America Great Again', the song was popularised by Ronald Reagan and used at Republican rallies in the 1980s. It has enjoyed periodic comebacks ever since, most notably in the aftermath of 9/11.
Now it has become the soundtrack of Trump's presidency — and Greenwood, a regular guest at the president's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, has returned to the top of the charts.
The Times met Greenwood at a fairground in Pennsylvania last week, where an audience composed largely of farmers had gathered to watch him perform next to a shed containing a selection of prize-winning goats.
Speaking before the show in his air-conditioned tour bus, Greenwood, who has an estimated net worth of up to $10 million, revealed that all his work for Trump is done 'gratis' — although he sells Trump-endorsed 'God Bless the USA' Bibles to fans for $59.99, or $1,000 for a copy signed by the president.
This year alone he has sung at Trump's inauguration, Trump's birthday parade in Washington on the 250th anniversary of the US army and Trump's recent tour of the Gulf, where Greenwood sang for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia and the Emir of Qatar.
'I didn't serve in the military,' says Greenwood, who began his career on the Las Vegas strip as a jobbing musician and still regards himself as an outsider in Nashville, his adopted home. 'I think this is my way of serving.'
His relationship with Trump goes back to the 1990s. Kimberly Payne, Greenwood's wife and a former Miss Tennessee, introduced her husband to Trump, a New York property developer at the time, after meeting him through his ownership of the Miss Universe franchise.
When Trump moved into politics, that personal friendship became a double act.
The pair have mastered a routine that delights Trump's crowds. Likening his role to that of a 'court jester', Greenwood says: 'I play my song, they open the curtain and he makes a dramatic entrance.
'Whenever I worked with Reagan or [George] Bush, the president spoke, [then] I sang. Trump uses my song as an entrance, like a ta-da.'
Although he prefers to identify as a conservative Christian rather than a Republican, Greenwood has embraced Maga politics.
At one point, he inadvertently admits that Trump 'lost the election' in 2020, before pausing as he realises he has just contradicted the president's assertion the election was stolen.
'Um … I have my own view about that, but I don't think I'll go on record of saying whether he did or didn't,' he clarifies.
There were plenty of Americans left disillusioned by the events of January 6, 2021, when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, resulting in the deaths of five people.
However, Greenwood believes that Black Lives Matters protesters engineered the chaos to discredit Trump by jumping out of buses into the crowd and antagonising his supporters.
'I think Black Lives Matter had a place to play in that,' he says. 'It was not the people in the march. When our crowd was incited, 'hey, let's go into Capitol', I believe a lot of them were drawn into that. It's a shame. You know what happens with a lynch mob. People get riled up.'
Trump's supporters have promoted a number of conspiracy theories about the events of January 6, accusing the FBI, Antifa demonstrators and now, it appears, BLM of staging the insurrection. A 161-page report produced by a congressional committee in 2022 found Trump himself responsible for inciting the riot.
Many of Trump's most devout Maga loyalists believe in such conspiracy theories. Last July's assassination attempt on Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania — not too far from the Fayette County Fair — played into suspicions of a deep state trying to bring him down.
The lyrics of God Bless the USA, urging believers to 'stand up' and 'defend' the country, echo the iconic image of Trump taken after the assassination attempt, with his fist raised and blood pouring from his ear. When Trump returned to Butler, after an apparent act of providence, Greenwood performed alongside him.
'They tried to weaken him financially and then they tried to kill him,' says Greenwood. 'And I say 'they'. I'm not sure how deep that goes because I have no proof.'
Greenwood's song is brimming with nostalgia for America's past. Its resurgence as the soundtrack of Maga typifies a yearning for a return to American patriotism and traditional values. But what are Americans searching for in their past?
'We have a serious immigration problem,' Greenwood says. 'When I was growing up, there was no doubt who was an American. We fought for the same thing.'
But what about the strand of American patriotism that embraces immigration? The spirit that is included in the Statue of Liberty, with its inscription beseeching the Old World to 'give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free'?
'The difference is assimilation,' Greenwood says. 'We assume those people who came across Ellis Island in the early days wanted to be an American. We have too many people here that don't want to be an American, that don't want to fit into our society.'
He adds: 'I don't think we're going to have a civil war again. But we do need to redefine who we are. And I believe stopping illegal immigration is the reason.'
Does he ever worry that he will go down in history as a one-hit wonder?
'I think it's amazing that a farmer from California could have had enough talent and the gift of music to be able to write something that moved my country,' he says.
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Reuters
13 minutes ago
- Reuters
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The Guardian
13 minutes ago
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Daily Mail
13 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
MAGA political guru bashes Trump for Ukraine peace talks while ignoring war 'right here in this country'
One of President Donald Trump 's fiercest supporters has slammed his decision to host peace talks with Ukraine rather than focus on crises closer to home. Steve Bannon, who served in Trump's first administration, said Trump's focus on the Russia and Ukraine war was to the detriment of Americans in crime ravaged communities. Bannon singled out Washington D.C., which has become the center of controvers y this month amid fears it is gripped by rampant crime. 'The war we got to win is right here in this country, and it's in Washington D.C.,' Bannon said. 'It's going to be in New York City. It's in Chicago, and most importantly, right now, with Gavin Newsom and all his big talk, it's in Los Angeles, California. That's the war that we got to be focused on.' Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House on Monday - his first visit to Washington since their infamous fallout in February - to discuss the terms of a potential peace deal with Russia. Zelensky was joined by a handful of European leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Merz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni - who had feared he was walking into a trap days after Trump met with Putin in Alaska. Bannon criticized Trump for later opting to accept meetings with the European leaders, despite their decision to show up in the United States without official invitation. The meeting focused on 'security guarantees for Ukraine, which Guarantees would be provided by the various European Countries, with a coordination with the United States of America,' Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday. 'Everyone is very happy about the possibility of PEACE for Russia/Ukraine.' But Bannon told listeners on his The War Room podcast that Trump's words on peace in Russia and Ukraine were irrelevant to him. 'I want to give a security guarantee to the citizens of the United States on these invaders right now,' he said. 'That's the security guarantee I want. This entire war is so that Ukraine could be a Western country.' Bannon has called on Trump to refocus his attention on expanding his power over local police forces across the United States. Trump federalized the police force in Washington to prevent further 'bloodshed' and has sent hundreds of troops from the National Guard in to clean up crime. 'D.C. has been under siege from thugs and killers, but now, D.C. is back under Federal Control where it belongs. The White House is in charge,' Trump said last week. 'The Military and our Great Police will liberate this City, scrape away the filth, and make it safe, clean, habitable and beautiful once more!' But Trump's focus was drawn back to the Russia-Ukraine conflict on Friday after he held talks with Putin. Trump was unable to get Putin to agree to a ceasefire but said it was an otherwise extremely productive meeting and that he is confident of securing a peace deal. Speaking to Zelensky in the White House on Monday, Trump suggested the trilateral meeting with Putin within the next two weeks in an effort to secure a peace deal. 'We had very good conversation and it really was the best one - maybe the best one will be in the future. But it was really good,' the Ukrainian leader said.
