Rock
What did Donald Trump once say about Bruce Springsteen?
Donald Trump recently launched a bitter Truth Social attack on Bruce Springsteen, but he once held a different view of the legendary rocker.
Donald Trump once said that he was Bruce Springsteen's "biggest" fan, according to an original member of the E Street Band.
The US president recently described the Born in the USA rocker - a vocal critic of his administration - as a "dried old prune" in a Truth social post but Vini 'Mad Dog' Lopez, who performed with The Boss during the early years of his music career, has claimed that the White House chief once held a rather different viewpoint on Springsteen.
Vini met Trump at his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey when he was working as a caddy and remembered his interaction with the 79-year-old business mogul as warm.
The former golf caddy told the California Post newspaper: “He was very nice to me. He was very inquisitive and introduced me to Melania."
As Trump left the course, he asked Vini to do him a "big favour".
Vini claimed he said: "Tell Bruce I’m his biggest fan."
The 77-year-old musician also called for Springsteen to show more respect to the president and stop attacking him on stage.
He said: “You gotta have respect for the president.
“Trump is the president of the United States — everyone should have respect for him.
“He is the president of the United States. And if I was standing there talking to him, I would have mucho respect for the man. I wouldn’t talk to him about anything that’s going on [politically]."
Vini stressed that he isn't opposed to Bruce's statements but doesn't want to see politics tear the United States apart.
He said: “I am not against what Bruce is saying now.
“Maybe when I was 20, I was a little more extreme, but I’m 77 now, so the extremities are gone.
“It’s so divided, the political part. It’s a tough one on me.”
And the veteran musician insisted his own current group, The Wonderful Winos, are deliberately apolitical.
He said: “My band, whatever we think, we don’t go there in our music."
Despite his comments, Vini insisted he and the Glory Days hitmaker - who he played with for six years during the 1960s and 1970s before parting ways because he was "too jazzy" - are on "perfect" terms and still in occasional contact.
He said: “If he wants me to do something, he’ll call me.
“Sometimes it’s just because he hasn’t seen me for a while. And he’ll call me and say. ‘Hey, come around here.’"
“And most of the time it’s terrible when I call him because it’s when one of our crew died and he doesn’t know that. That’s happening more and more.”
