Kid Rock vs. the media is a tale as old as time.
The rocker/rapper, whose real name is Bob Ritchie, has always had a contentious relationship with the mainstream media. Of course Kid Rock is an outspoken conservative and Trump supporter and the mainstream media is…well, not. So it’s no wonder that they’re quick to report on anything that they think will make Kid Rock look bad.
But they aren’t as quick to report on things that show Kid Rock in a positive light – and he’s calling them out for ignoring a big story recently.
Kid Rock was, of course, the driving force behind the recent dinner between longtime foes President Donald Trump and liberal talk show host and comedian Bill Maher. He said before organizing the meeting that he hoped to bring the two together in an attempt to unite the country and show that people on opposite sides of the political aisle could get along and find common ground:
“I’m actually gonna try to unite this country, and at the end of the month, I’m taking Bill Maher to the White House for dinner. This guy has done nothing but talk smack about the President since day one. But he’s a comedian too. I can have conversations with him… we can find common ground.
He’s actually more reasonable than a lot of people on the right would think. Especially the last four years or whatever. So I said to him, ‘If I can hook you guys up,’ this that and the other. Trust me, there’s a lot of people more deserving to be at that table. It’s a big deal for me to bring him there. What would it say to this country?”
Ahead of the dinner, which also included UFC CEO Dana White, Trump expressed his reservations and said he was only doing it as a favor to Kid Rock:
“I got a call from a very good guy, and friend of mine, Kid Rock, asking me whether or not it would be possible for me to meet, in the White House, with Bill Maher, a man who has been unjustifiably critical of anything, or anyone, TRUMP.
I really didn’t like the idea much, and don’t like it much now, but thought it would be interesting. The problem is, no matter how much he likes your Favorite President, ME, he will publicly proclaim what a terrible guy I am, etc., very much like the Democrats at my recent Address to the Joint Session of Congress, where I stated, correctly, that no matter what I said or did, they wouldn’t stand, they wouldn’t applaud, they wouldn’t smile or laugh and, certainly, they wouldn’t be in any way “nice.”
Who knows, though, maybe I’ll be proven wrong? In any event, I’m doing a favor for a friend. I look forward to meeting with Bill Maher, Kid Rock and, I believe, even the Legendary Dana White will be present. It might be fun or, it might not, but you will be the first to know!”
Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the idea, but as it turns out, it apparently went better than everybody expected.
Kid Rock appeared on Fox News the following day to report that the dinner “couldn’t have gone better,” while Maher gave a rundown on his show and was surprisingly complimentary of the president:
“The guy I met is not the person who, the night before the dinner, shit-tweeted a bunch of nasty crap about how he thought this dinner was a bad idea and what a deranged asshole I was. I read it and thought, ‘Oh, what a lovely way to welcome someone to your house.’ But when I got there, that guy wasn’t living there.
Now, does Trump want respect? Of course. Who doesn’t…
Just for starters, he laughs. I’ve never seen him laugh in public. But he does, including at himself. And it’s not fake…
He’s much more self-aware than he lets on in public. Look, I get it, it doesn’t matter who he is at a private dinner with a comedian. It matters who he is on the world stage. I’m just taking it as a positive that this person exists, because everything I’ve ever not liked about him was, I swear to God, absent, at least on this night with this guy.”
Maher gave several examples of disagreeing with the president to his face, and describes Trump as being thoughtful and taking interested in what he had to say:
“I’ve had so many conversations with prominent people who were much less connected. People who don’t look you in the eye, people who don’t really listen because they just want to get to their next thing. People whose response to things you say just doesn’t track… None of that with him. And he mostly steered the conversation to, ‘What do YOU think about this?’
I know, your mind is blown. So is mine.”
And he also admitted that he was far more relaxed talking to Trump than he would have been any of the Democrats he voted for:
“I never felt I had to walk on eggshells around him. And honestly, I voted Clinton, and Obama, but I would never feel comfortable talking to them the way I was able to talk with Donald Trump. That’s just how it went down. Make of it as you will. Me, I feel it’s emblematic of why the Democrats are so unpopular these days.”
Now, Maher didn’t exactly walk away from their dinner a MAGA fan. And he says that he wishes Trump behaved publicly more like he did in private. But he says that he walked away realizing that the person on TV may not be the real Trump:
“A crazy person doesn’t live in the White House. A person who plays a crazy person on TV a lot lives there, which I know is f***ed up, it’s just not as f***ed up as I thought it was.”
Sounds like a net positive, right?
Of course not all of the media covered it that way, with plenty of people criticizing Maher for “normalizing” Trump (he’s the President of the United States, I think we’re beyond that) and others outright ignoring it for the positive story that it was.
And Kid Rock has had enough of the media’s games.
In a lengthy video posted to social media, Rock called out the mainstream media for either ignoring or misrepresenting the evening they spent at the White House:
“There’s something that’s been weighing on my mind concerning this dinner with Bill Maher, President Trump, Dana White and myself… but it’s really no shocker…
What the f**k? This dinner – I stuck my neck out to make this dinner happen. There was a chance it could go really bad, and that I might lose the president’s trust over lining this thing up. Thank God it turned out so good. I think like most people it’s such a positive thing for this country and a message of having some civility between reasonable people who disagree. That was proven.
But what the f**k? The mainstream media… I’ve seen zero on NBC, ABC, CBS, I don’t think I’ve seen anything on CNN. I saw something that the Washington Post is trying to change the narrative of course that it was a bad thing or that Bill Maher got played or something.
I mean what the f**k? This is something, no matter what your politics are, that should be a positive thing for our country.”
Kid Rock said he didn’t care about the accolades, and that he didn’t care whether his name was mentioned or not, but that the media should have reported on it honestly and fairly as something positive for our country:
“There’s no doubt that this is something positive for our country, and none of these motherf**kers could say anything about it? That tells you everything you need to know about these people…
Until there’s some changes at these places at the highest levels, people who run these news organizations… And f**k you anchors too, who report the news, because you’re nothing but f**king puppets… You know this is a positive thing that helps our country out, but I guess it paints President Trump in some sort of good light so you’re like, ‘No, we’re not going to report on it.'”
Rock notes that he hasn’t even seen anything about the meeting on the local news here in Nashville where he lives, and calls out those making the decisions at these organizations to ignore anything positive about Trump:
“In my book, you motherf**kers are public enemy #1.”
Can always count on Kid Rock to tell you how he feels…and when it comes to the mainstream media, it’s safe to say he’s not a fan.
