Trump told soldiers he loved Elvis before rushing to Graceland, but when a reporter asked his favorite song he needed the tour guide to bail him out

President Donald Trump visited Graceland, Elvis Presley’s iconic estate in Memphis, after wrapping up a law enforcement roundtable at a Tennessee Air National Guard hangar. Before leaving, he told the crowd of National Guard soldiers and federal law enforcement officials, “I love Elvis!” and announced he would be making a quick stop at the estate, just a few miles away.

Once inside the mansion, as he was being guided into Presley’s den, famously known as the “Jungle Room”, Trump opened the floor to reporters and asked if they had any questions about the late singer.  According to The Independent, someone immediately asked what his favorite Elvis track was.

After a few seconds of silence, with no song title coming to mind, Trump turned to the tour guide for help. He then replied, “She just mentioned one of them…Hurt.” That is Presley’s 1976 cover song, released just over a year before his death, and not one of his more widely known classics like Love Me Tender, Heartbreak Hotel, or Hound Dog.

Trump’s connection to Elvis goes beyond just one awkward visit to Graceland

Hurt, originally a 1954 cover by Roy Hamilton, did not make it onto Presley’s greatest hits compilations, including the 2000 release Elvis Presley: The 50 Greatest Hits. Trump quickly added, “He’s got so many. There’s very few I don’t like.”

It was Trump’s first visit to Graceland, where Presley is buried alongside his mother, Gladys. He was accompanied by Attorney General Pam Bondi during the tour. Graceland, which Presley’s daughter Lisa Marie inherited after the rock and roll icon’s 1977 death, opened to the public as a museum in 1982 and draws around half a million visitors every year.

Earlier that day, during the roundtable, Trump recalled that when his administration’s Memphis Safe Task Force anti-crime effort was first proposed, his first thought was about Memphis being home to Graceland. He told the crowd he “loved” Presley but had never actually met him. “I met Sinatra. I knew all of them. I never met Elvis,” Trump said.

“Sometimes I feel I should tell little fibs that I knew him…I love Elvis, but I never met him. But I’m going to go see Graceland after this.” Trump has compared himself to Presley on more than one occasion. Last year, he posted a split-image of his face alongside Presley’s on Truth Social without any comment.

In 2024, he shared the same image and asked his followers, “For so many years people have been saying that Elvis and I look alike. Now this pic has been going all over the place. What do you think?” Meanwhile, his administration has also been dealing with serious foreign policy tensions, as Trump’s 48-hour ultimatum directed at Iran continues to escalate regional instability.

Presley himself once engineered a visit with one of Trump’s predecessors. According to the White House Historical Association, he showed up at the White House’s northwest gate in December 1970 with a six-page letter to President Richard Nixon, asking to be made a “Federal Agent at Large” with the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.

The Graceland visit also comes at a time when Trump’s foreign policy moves have drawn widespread attention. He recently posted an SNL clip mocking the UK Prime Minister on the same evening the two leaders spoke about the Iran situation, raising eyebrows across the political spectrum.