Welcome to Declassified, a weekly humor column.

TV advert voice: “Coming soon, the album you’ve all been waiting for: ‘Donald Trump and Nicki Minaj’s Covers Record.’ Featuring hits like…
‘Ice Ice Baby’ by Vanilla Ice,
‘Tiny Hands’ by Fiona Apple,
‘Orange Crush’ by R.E.M.,
‘Opposites Attract’ by Paula Abdul,
‘Something Stupid’ by Frank and Nancy Sinatra,
‘Daddy’ by Beyoncé,
‘(Baby Baby) Can I Invade Your Country’ by Sparks,
‘I Just Can’t Wait To Be King’ from the soundtrack to ‘The Lion King,’
and (sadly) many more. Available on Spotify and in all bad record stores near you.”

This week saw rapper Nicki Minaj — whose hits include “Super Bass,” “Starships” and “Anaconda” — cozy up to U.S. President Donald Trump, whose own hits include “Covfefe,” “SAD!” and “Threatening to invade Greenland.”

The rapper, born in Trinidad and Tobago, declared herself Trump’s “number one fan” on Wednesday, showing off her “gold card” visa, which offers applicants residency and a path to U.S. citizenship for the sum of $1 million — a relative bargain compared to the $1 billion asking price to join Trump’s Board of Peace.

The mutual love-in also saw Trump joke that he would grow out his nails to emulate the rapper, then hold her hand while another speaker took to the podium. Ahh — unless you look at the footage, then it’s more urgh.

Trump’s musical taste seems to extend only to those who say nice things about him. That’s why he’s no fan of Bad Bunny (who will play the Super Bowl half-time show on Feb. 8) or Green Day (who will play before the game begins). He told the New York Post they are both “terrible,” adding: “I’m anti-them.” The president also said he was skipping this year’s Super Bowl because the venue — Santa Clara, California — is “just too far away.”

Stating how much you love Trump, it’s fair to say, isn’t common among musicians these days.

Bruce Springsteen released a song called “Streets of Minneapolis” this week about the violence in the city and the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal immigration agents.

It’s a powerful song that mentions “bloody footprints, where mercy should have stood, and two dead left to die on snow-filled streets.“

Springsteen’s song also contains the line: “King Trump’s private army from the DHS, guns belted to their coats, came to Minneapolis to enforce the law, or so their story goes.“ Though this is slightly undone for me — and surely only me — by the fact that I always confuse DHS (the U.S. Department of Homeland Security) with DFS (a British discount sofa retailer that’s had a sale on for decades).

Trump’s no fan, of course, and has previously called Springsteen a “dried-out prune of a rocker.”

Meanwhile, Neil Young gave everyone in Greenland free access to his music and documentary archive to “ease some of the unwarranted stress and threats you are experiencing from our unpopular and hopefully temporary government.”

Young also reiterated his objection to Amazon due to CEO Jeff Bezos’s support for Trump. In October, the musician had announced he would be removing his catalog from the streaming platform Amazon Music. Young has form here, having similarly called for his music to be removed from Spotify in 2022 because the streaming giant hosts podcasts by Joe Rogan, who has come under fire for spreading medical misinformation.

After that news, I had tweeted that Young’s most famous backing band is Crazy Horse and Rogan has taken the drug ivermectin, a horse dewormer, which resulted in a mass pile-on by the American right — and this was before the platform became X and a burning dumpster fire being pushed off a cliff by Elon Musk.

CAPTION COMPETITION

” A little horse?”
“Well, I have been doing a lot of shouting recently.”

Can you do better? Email us at pdallison@politico.eu or get in touch on X @POLITICOEurope.

Last time, we gave you this photo:

Thanks for all the entries. Here’s the best one from our mailbag — there’s no prize except the gift of laughter, which I think we can all agree is far preferable to cash or booze.

“I wish the Americans would turn off that blinding orange light on stage.“

by Tom Morgan