During his short life, the patriotic Elvis Presley took the office of the US President very seriously.
When home at Graceland, the King famously watched multiple TVs broadcasting different channels simultaneously after hearing LBJ did it in the White House.
Concerned about hippy and drug culture, he organised a meeting with Richard Nixon in the Oval Office to offer his help. And shortly before his untimely death at just 42, he phoned up Jimmy Carter while high on barbiturates to request a presidential pardon for a local sheriff.
Had he not died in 1977, Elvis would have turned 90 in January and presumably would have been endorsing a presidential candidate. During his administration, Donald Trump posthumously awarded The King the Presidential Medal of Freedom. But what would Elvis have made of him and would he have endorsed him?
In an exclusive new interview from the very stage where the star performed every Las Vegas residency show, we asked his bodyguard, confidant and step-brother, David Stanley.
David, who now lives and works full-time at the Westgate Casino Hotel as an Elvis ambassador and historian, told us the King would have endorsed Trump’s policies despite the former president’s controversial character.
The 68-year-old said: “Personally, the Elvis I knew would like Donald Trump’s action [but] might be a little freaked out about the way he depicts himself. But as far as conservative, America First, money in our pocket instead of somebody else’s, independent from the needs of oil, lack of war.. I mean, I think Elvis would have said, ‘Ditto!’
“He’d have thought [Trump] was crazy. He’d have gone to see him… ‘I want to talk to him!’ But I think people say, in America, ‘If you like Donald Trump, you’re an atheist, you’re Satan.’ I personally like Donald Trump. I think he’s out there, but the proof is in his pudding.
So, as a gun-toting white working-class Southerner, would Elvis have called himself a Republican?
David added: “He’s have probably been a Democrat when Kennedy was president. I don’t know, because he didn’t talk a whole lot about that. Now, when he met Nixon, he began to loosen up and talk about, ‘I’m a Republican because we keep more of our money, we’re more independent, we’re not as dependent on the country’.
“But he would have hated to see what’s going on today. Back then, Nixon and the opponent could argue, you know, nowadays [they’re like] ‘I hate you. You’re Hitler!’ or ‘You’re Communist!’ He wouldn’t have liked that at all.”
My Brother Elvis: An Evening with David Stanley, which includes a tour of the backstage where The King performed, is held monthly at Westgate, Las Vegas, and tickets can be booked here.
