Eric Church Is ‘Conflicted’ About President Trump: ‘I Have a Ton of Problems With Him’
Eric Church didn't vote in the 2016 presidential election, but as the product of a small, working-class town, he wasn't surprised when it turned out the way it did. In a new interview, the country superstar says that while he supports President Trump in some ways, he has deep misgivings in some other key areas.
Church "just didn't see much" when it came to Hillary Clinton, but he couldn't bring himself to vote for Trump, either. His wife, Katherine, voted for Trump and encouraged him to, but as he tells Rolling Stone Country, "Ain’t gonna happen ... I don’t want to vote for somebody I’ll regret voting for."
He feels like Trump's record so far is a mixed bag.
“I like that he’s thrown a monkey wrench into things. I think that chaos is good," Church says. "I enjoyed the North Korea thing. Why haven’t we talked to that guy? Tariffs, I don’t know yet. I don’t want a trade war, but I’ll walk with him down that road a little farther.”
Eric Church Opens Up About Medical Emergency That Nearly Killed Him
Still, "I have a ton of problems with him," Church admits. "I don’t like the racial overtones. I hate the tweeting. It seems insecure, petty, not presidential."
Church tells RSC that he holds primarily conservative-leaning views on issues like small government and taxes, but he's more centrist, even slightly progressive on issues including abortion, climate change and clean energy, NFL protests and immigration.
The latter issue is one that Trump's handling of it has really drawn Church's ire, after thousands of immigrant children have been separated from their parents at the border ... in some cases, including families who were seeking legal asylum.
"You never separate kids from their families. Never, ever, ever," Church says. "You want to deport them, deport them. But this is wrong. It’s horrific. It’s child abuse, as far as I can tell. When I see a crying kid separated from their parents, I don’t give a sh-t what you have to say. No f--king chance."
Church voted for Barack Obama in 2008, and skipped voting in 2012. He says he eyes both parties with suspicion and attributes America's bigger troubles to a fundamentally broken system in which money plays too large a role.
“Some of this stuff you look at and go, ‘What the f--k? Why is this hard?’" he admits. "Why can we not get infrastructure done? Why don’t we do more clean energy? Why are [prescription] drugs so expensive? Because it’s a lobbyist-based system. It’s a money-based system. Either way, we’re fu--ed.”
He saw Bernie Sanders as someone who might have been able to upset that system.
“I love Bernie,” he says. “Bernie had a great message. It’s funny: If it had been Bernie versus Trump, I don’t know what I would’ve done. I would’ve at least thought about it more than I did."
Watch Lindsay Ell's Incredible One-Woman Performance for RISERS!
The Most Political Country Singers