President Donald Trump gave the traveling press corps a moment few of them expected this weekend, and it had nothing to do with policy, polling or the usual combative back and forth that has defined his relationship with the mainstream media for a decade. Somewhere over the Atlantic on the flight home from Ireland, the president decided the press cabin needed some music.
According to multiple pool reports, roughly two hours into the return flight, White House staff walked into the press section of Air Force One and asked reporters if they wanted to hear the president’s personal playlist. The reporters, perhaps surprised by the offer, said yes. A speaker was brought in and cranked up, and the cabin was treated to a full sampling of what has become known as the “Approved Rally Playlist,” the same rotation Trump uses to fire up crowds at his rallies across the country.
The soundtrack was as eclectic as it was unexpected for a working press pool more accustomed to briefing memos than backstage passes. Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” played alongside Lesley Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me.” The Undertaker’s WWE entrance music blared through the cabin. Cat Stevens’ “Wild World” and R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion” made appearances, as did The Who’s “Baba O’Riley,” Luciano Pavarotti’s “Nessun Dorma,” ABBA’s “Fernando” and Guns N’ Roses’ “November Rain.”
It was not a passive gesture either. Reporters on board said the president himself later walked back to the press cabin to check in personally, asking the assembled journalists whether they were enjoying the music. He reportedly asked twice, wanting to make sure everyone approved of his selections. When told the music was great, Trump asked who had picked the playlist, and answered his own question with pride, saying he had put it together himself.
That small detail says more about the current occupant of the Oval Office than most policy briefings ever could. Here is a president in his second term, dealing with wars overseas, a fractious Congress and a press corps that has spent years portraying him in the harshest possible light, taking time out of a return flight to personally make sure the same reporters were having a good time listening to his music. It is difficult to imagine his predecessor doing anything remotely similar.
The moment also captures something conservatives have long argued about Trump that rarely makes it into mainstream coverage. For all the media narratives about an unhinged, isolated president feuding endlessly with the press, Trump has a habit of engaging with reporters directly, often walking back into the press cabin unprompted for extended gaggles that other presidents would have left entirely to press secretaries and prepared statements. Whatever one thinks of his politics, Trump treats the press as something to be handled personally, not managed at arm’s length through layers of staff.
That personal touch cuts both ways, of course. The same trip that produced the lighthearted playlist moment also included a sharper exchange between the president and a reporter from ABC News. When a journalist pressed Trump about the deployment of thousands of Marines and sailors to the Middle East amid tensions with Iran, the president shut the question down hard, calling the reporter “very obnoxious” before moving on to someone else. He went further, describing ABC News itself as one of the most corrupt organizations in the country.
That contrast, warm one moment and combative the next, is exactly what has defined Trump’s relationship with the press since he first rode down the escalator at Trump Tower a decade ago. It is also precisely why the playlist story resonated the way it did. Trump does not outsource his relationship with the media to handlers the way most modern presidents have. He manages it himself, checking in on reporters much the same way he checks in on his own music selections, wanting to know in real time whether people are enjoying what he has put in front of them.
