California Governor Gavin Newsom has poked fun at Donald Trump’s golfing session with one of his celebrity MAGA pals.
On Monday, musician Kid Rock, 54, posted a moody black and white photo of him sitting in a golf cart smiling at Trump, 79.
The rocker’s caption bragged he had “golfed with your favorite President again,” before referencing another odd couple; soul icon James Brown and Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti performing “This Is a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” live in Italy in 2002, a rendition which he said Trump had alerted him to.
“Can’t believe I have never heard this,” Kid Rock wrote, getting both the title of the song and the spelling of the tenor’s surname incorrect. “Incredible!”
Newsom’s Press Office account reposted Kid Rock’s picture with the caption “cute couple.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
Kid Rock, whose most recent album Bad Reputation peaked at No.124 in 2022, was also called out for his casual golfing attire of a sleeveless tank, shorts and sneakers.
Guests at Trump’s private golf clubs are required to wear shirts with collars and sleeves when playing.
Trump has a checkered history with Pavarotti, who was part of the classical crossover group The Three Tenors as well as being a solo superstar who sold over 100 million records.
At a press conference with then Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni in April 2017, Trump said Pavarotti was a “Friend of mine, great friend of mine.”
Pavarotti died a decade earlier, in September 2007.
Trump foe Jimmy Kimmel noted at the time, “He’s been dead for 10 years, so it kind of makes you wonder about how deep their friendship is.”
At a town hall in October 2024 on the election campaign, Trump picked the Brown and Pavarotti duet as one of his nine favorite songs to soundtrack the event, which also included “Memory” from the musical Cats and the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.”
However, despite Trump’s love of Pavarotti and his music, the singer’s family previously protested his use of “Nessun Dorma” at his rallies, citing concerns about his views on immigration.
The singer’s widow, Nicoletta Mantovani Pavarotti, and three daughters said in a statement in 2016 that “the values of brotherhood and solidarity which Luciano Pavarotti expressed throughout the course of his artistic career are entirely incompatible with the worldview offered by the candidate Donald Trump.”
Trump also had interesting links with James Brown, who died in December, 2006.
In July this year, The New York Times posted a photo of Trump, Brown and Jeffrey Epstein that appeared in the infamous birthday book for the sex offender compiled by Ghislaine Maxwell.
The photo was not dated, however Brown regularly performed in Atlantic City, N.J. when Trump owned the Taj Mahal casino.
Kid Rock met Trump in 2017 and the two became regular golfing buddies. The musician, who was rumored to be dating Republican Lauren Boebert earlier this year, hung out with Trump in the White House in March.
He was summoned to Washington when Trump signed an executive order against ticket scalping and for the reform of the live entertainment ticketing industry.
Talking on the Will Cain Podcast in June, the “All Summer Long” hitmaker bragged about being able to call Trump directly.
“We have a lot in common,” he said of Trump. “I know the best hours to get him, which is really early. And then, you know, kind of dinnertime late weekends when he’s golfing or something.”
“I try not to bother him too much… so when I call him it’s just fun calls, like I’m his buddy.”
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