Pawn shop owner Rick Harrison, who rose to fame on the hit reality show “Pawn Stars,” recently recalled an anecdote about President Donald Trump apologizing to him following a mix-up with the Secret Service.
The Las Vegas-based business owner, who is an outspoken conservative, recalled the incident during a recent interview on “In Depth with Graham Bensinger.”
Harrison spoke about not being able to get backstage during a rally and having President Trump personally apologize for the trouble.
“So this is kind of crazy,” the reality star told Bensinger. “So this is in 2018, he’s having a rally here in town for … someone running for Congress and Senate. And they wanted me to announce him at the rally. So I show up with my son Jake and my daughter Serena, White House staff goes, ‘Hey Rick, how’s it going? Come on, come this way.’”
“We go to backstage and Secret Service goes, ‘He’s not on the list,’” Harrison continued. “And they’re going like, ‘But it’s Rick Harrison.’ And his friend’s like, ‘Not on the list. Doesn’t matter.’ And I’m literally trying to call a U.S. senator, some other people, some congressman. I can’t get a hold of anybody.”
“Secret Service throws me into the public and I am getting mobbed. And we had to leave. We could not stay there. And I’m f***ing pissed,” he said.
Harrison recalled being especially disappointed because his son Jake had been looking forward to telling his friends he got to meet Trump.
“So I get a block from the house and then Senator Heller’s number pops up in my truck, and I’m like, Senator Heller knows I have no filter,” he went on. “So the first words out of his mouth, he’s like, ‘Rick, before you say a word, the President of the United States would like to talk to you.’”
Harrison recalled, “And the first words out of Trump’s mouth were, ‘Rick, I am really sorry. This is all my fault, because my White House staff, they work for me. They screwed up. That makes it my fault. I’m sorry. They should have informed the Secret Service. So, I’m sorry, will you please come back down to the convention center? We’ll try and make this happen.’ And you’re not going to tell the president of the United States ‘no,’ right?”
During the same interview, Harrison mentioned that he was open to running for public office. “I know I can’t completely change the world, but I would like to leave it in a better place. Just changed a little bit, to make it a little bit better,” he said. “I do a lot of work with charity work and stuff like that. I’m proud of that. So maybe. I think I would do a good job at it.”
