Sadly, that’s probably not Kid Rock in the margins of the Trump indictment

There might be better metrics for the health of a democracy than the Kid Rock Centrality Index—the scientific measurement of how completely doomed a country is, as determined by how close “Bawitdaba” artist Kid Rock is to the major political stories of the day—but we can’t think of one more viscerally depressing. And the KRCI is trending quite high this weekend, we regret to inform, as online detectives have been looking over yesterday’s unsealed indictment of former President Donald Trump, and openly wondering if one of the unnamed participants Trump is accused of showing classified documents to was also a man who once professionally rap-rock rhymed the words “bottle of scotch” and “watch lots of crotch” for the cheering crowds.

This is per Billboard, which notes that, of the 37 felony counts lodged against Trump in the indictment, a portion of one that’s caught people’s eyes reads as follows: “In August or September 2021, at The Bedminster Club, Trump showed a representative of his political action committee who did not possess a security clearance a classified map related to a military operation.” People were quick to compare this to an interview that Kid Rock gave in 2022, when he told Tucker Carlson about an incident in which Trump and he were “looking at maps and shit,” causing the musician to ask himself “Am I supposed to be in on this shit?” Suggesting Trump asked him, “‘What do you think we should do about North Korea?’” Rock said, “I’m like, what? I don’t think I’m qualified to answer this.”

Sadly—for our grand unifying theory of Kid Rock as the harbinger of all American political doom, at least—this incident doesn’t appear to actually be the one mentioned in the indictment. Given other context clues, Kid Rock is clearly talking about one of his (multiple) White House visits while Trump was still in office, and not the post-presidential displaying of classified documents that Trump is currently accused of. (Although the two do apparently still golf together, and we all know nothing cuts the tension of a bad drive like busting out some classified maps of foreign enemies to have a chuckle over on the links.)