Video: Donald Trump Presents Mariano Rivera with the Presidential Medal of Freedom Ceremony, Ruins Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”

In what has to be one of the more surreal moments in metal history to date, Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” has now been played during an official event at the White House.

Unfortunately, that event involved the befuddled grandpa currently acting as our Commander-in-Chief and the New York Yankees.

The historic moment took place yesterday, when President Donald Trump presented retired Yanks pitcher and MLB Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera with the Presidential Medal of Freedom (which makes it sound like the recipient is a war hero, but is basically America’s version of knighting someone — it’s an honorary thing usually awarded to someone of cultural significance). Rivera, of course, was nicknamed “Sandman,” and famously used “Enter Sandman” as his entrance music throughout his career. Consequently, the Metallica anthem was played as President Trump and Rivera walked to the podium.

Here’s video of this sad-but-true moment from C-Span. Seriously. The C-Span. This is NOT dubbed.

Gross.

Of course, some scholars have argued that Metallica are the Yankees of metal, so they may already hold the band in such regard that this doesn’t put them off so much. Personally, I take comfort knowing that Rivera doesn’t actually give two shits about Metallica, as he told MLB.com a few years ago:

“I never said that I didn’t like it, but I didn’t care about the song. I didn’t pick the song. I don’t pay attention to the music. When I go in there, I’m going to business. I have a job to do, that’s it.”

Neat.

Speaking of Trump and Metallica, there’s a YouTuber, Lars von Retriever, who routinely edits Trump speeches to use as vocals over famous metal songs. He hasn’t done “Enter Sandman” yet, but he has done “Don’t Tread on Me” and “Master of Puppets.” The “Tread” video is especially impressive, because it doesn’t utilize auto-tune.

Here, have a few yucks: