President Donald Trump spent part of a radio interview on Wednesday, August 26, 2026, reflecting on the death of country music legend Dolly Parton — and, somewhere in the middle of it, assuring listeners that the singer had quietly been a fan of his. Radio host Glenn Beck, on the other end of the line, laughed out loud.
Parton, the “I Will Always Love You” singer and a beloved figure in American music, died on Tuesday at age 80 after a battle with cancer. Trump ordered US flags lowered to half-staff on Tuesday in her honor, directing that they stay down until September 1 — a full week of mourning for a performer whose death he had first called a loss for millions of people.
Trump’s Claim on the Glenn Beck Program
Calling into “The Glenn Beck Program” from Washington, Trump, 80, said he was a little surprised to learn that the White House had never before honored an entertainer by lowering the flag. He described Parton as unique and amazing, and said her death felt like losing a member of the family. The warm tribute lasted seconds.
Then came the pivot. Trump said he knew Parton a little and that she was not a very political person, before adding: “She really liked me, I will tell you.” Beck’s laugh followed almost immediately.
The president went on to offer a theory about why Parton never said so publicly, suggesting she worried about alienating a chunk of her audience — a share he first put at 50 percent before revising it down to roughly 20 percent. He called her a great person and a nice person, said he liked her a lot, and told Beck that lowering the flags struck him as the natural thing to do. He had long been a fan; “Jolene” featured on his campaign playlist. Video of the exchange, posted on X by Aaron Rupar (@atrupar), circulated on August 26.
What Parton Said About Politics
Parton’s rule for partisan politics was simple: keep it off the record. “I don’t do politics,” she once said on a podcast, explaining that she had fans on both sides of the fence and had learned years ago to keep her opinions to herself.
On her podcast in 2019, she pointed to the Dixie Chicks as a cautionary tale, saying a career can be destroyed by speaking out and that she respected her audience — and herself — too much to risk angering half of it. During the 2016 election, she posted on Facebook that she had not settled on a candidate, joking that she had the hair for a presidential run herself and that voters were in for presidential mood swings no matter who won.
That neutrality extended to the nation’s highest civilian honor. Parton twice turned down the Presidential Medal of Freedom during Trump’s first term — passing on it initially while her husband, Carl Dean, who has since died, was unwell, then declining again rather than make a trip while COVID-19 was spreading. She later declined the same award from former President Joe Biden’s White House to avoid appearing political, telling NBC’s “Today” show in 2021 that accepting it would amount to doing politics.
Where Parton Did Speak Up
Staying out of elections did not mean staying silent. She came out against a Tennessee transgender ban in 2023, saying she simply wanted everyone treated well. In 2020, she said plainly that Black lives matter. She got the COVID-19 vaccine herself and gave $1 million to Vanderbilt University, a donation that helped bankroll the Moderna shot.
And at the 2017 Primetime Emmy Awards, she stood between her “9 to 5” co-stars Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda as Tomlin used the moment to blast Trump in blunt terms, calling him, among other things, a hypocritical bigot. Parton never endorsed him, and she kept clear of partisan politics for her entire career.
Malcolm Ferguson, a writer at The New Republic, argued that Trump had turned the death of a universally adored artist into an occasion to talk about himself, noting that it is far easier to describe how someone felt once that person is no longer around to answer. Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter, also drew criticism over a tribute post widely panned as tone-deaf.
Other Musical Losses This Year
Parton’s death caps a run of losses this year among musicians the president has praised. Village People frontman Victor Willis, who had defended Trump’s use of “Y.M.C.A.” as his 2024 campaign anthem, died June 30 at age 74. Bonnie Tyler, who sang “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” died July 8 at age 75; in May 2026, after she was hospitalized, the president was heard piping her signature hit through the Rose Garden’s new sound system.
For now, the flags stay down through September 1, an unusual gesture for a performer and one Trump said he considered obvious. Whether Parton would have wanted her name attached to any political conversation at all is, as she made clear again and again, a different question entirely.