Trump heads to Elvis Presley’s Graceland in Memphis, a detour during Iran war and airport turmoil

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — President Donald Trump, who for years has played Elvis Presley’s music at his campaign rallies across the country and who has often compared himself to Presley, said on Monday he’s heading to the King of Rock and Roll’s Memphis home while in town for an official event.

“I’m going to see Graceland after this, I think. Is that right?” Trump said during a meeting of the Memphis Safe Task Force. “I love Elvis.”

Trump’s side trip to a top tourist attraction — which has at times ranked as the second most-visited private home in the U.S. after the White House — is a stark contrast to the domestic and international issues on which the president gave updates at the beginning of his remarks in Memphis.

Thousands of Americans across the country are wading through long lines at security checkpoints at airports, where Trump sent federal immigration officers to assist the Transportation Security Administration during an ongoing Homeland Security shutdown. And although Trump in Tennessee on Monday noted that he had ordered a “temporary” halt to planned strikes on Iranian power plants, American forces are still embroiled in the sprawling regional conflict, in which at least 13 U.S. service members have been killed.

The late singer’s stately home, with its stone facade and white columned entrance, is just a few miles from the site of the roundtable meeting, which was also attended by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Attorney General Pam Bondi. Graceland opened as a museum and tourist attraction in 1982 as a tribute to Presley, the singer and actor who died in August 1977 at age 42, and draws hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.

Visitors see rooms including the kitchen, the Jungle Room and other parts of the home kept in the state they existed in when Elvis died. A large Presley-themed entertainment complex across the street from the museum is owned by Elvis Presley Enterprises and includes the singer’s automobiles and airplanes.

Saying that sometimes he was tempted to “tell a little fib” and say he had met the iconic performer, Trump said he assumed his stay at Graceland was “not going to be a very long stay, but I want to see that.”

Trump’s campaign rally pre-show set list often includes some of Presley’s music, such as “Suspicious Minds,” “I Want You, I Need You, I Love You,” and a medley of “Dixie” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” At times, massive digital screens at his rallies would play videos of Presley’s concerts.

Trump has often compared himself to Elvis through the years, as well. In early 2024, Trump on social media posted a composite photograph with half Presley’s face on one side and his own on the other.

“For so many years people have been saying that Elvis and I look alike. Now this pic has been going all over the place,” Trump wrote. “What do you think?”

Later that year, he shared on social media a black-and-white image that depicted Trump standing alongside the singer as he played guitar.

Trump has also shouted out the late musician from the stage, opening a 2018 rally in Tupelo, Mississippi — Presley’s birthplace — by joking that people used to say that at one time he resembled him.

“We love Elvis. I shouldn’t say this, you’ll say I’m very conceited because I’m not, but other than the blonde hair when I was growing up they said I looked like Elvis, do you see that, can you believe it?”

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Kinnard reported from Chapin, S.C., and can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP