johnny rotten john lydon maga
Lydon, pictured in October 2018 in New Orleans, has backed Trump for several years.
Johnny Rotten, frontman of the Sex Pistols, has announced that he is backing Donald Trump, describing the president as 'the only sensible choice' for the November election.

The London-born punk rocker, real name John Lydon, now lives in Los Angeles and became a US citizen in 2013.

He has previously voted for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, but told The Observer that he was now throwing his support behind Trump because of his handling of the economy.

'I'd be daft as a brush not to,' he said. 'He's the only sensible choice now that Biden is up - he's incapable of being the man at the helm.'

Lydon, who is vocal in his support of Brexit, even waved a MAGA baseball cap, to show that he was serious.

The 64-year-old was also photographed in New Orleans, on tour with his band PiL, in a red MAGA t-shirt.

Lydon, the paper reported, began supporting Trump when he too was accused of racism.

In 2008 Kele Okereke, of Bloc Party, said that members of Lydon's entourage were racially abusive during a backstage fight at a reunited Sex Pistols festival appearance.

Lydon said he was 'shocked' at being racist, noting that his grandchildren are mixed race; he supported Rock Against Racism; championed roots reggae and called his first memoir No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs.

'I've been accused of the very same thing, so I'm offended for anybody who's called that,' he said.

Asked about the killing of George Floyd, Lydon says it was 'ghastly' but doesn't mean all white people are racist.

'There's not anyone I know anywhere that wouldn't say that wasn't ghastly. Absolutely!

'It doesn't mean all police are nasty or all white folk are racist. Because all lives matter.'

When told that the slogan 'all lives matter' is seen as a belittling of Black Lives Matter, he replies: 'Of course I'm anti-racism.'

Lydon in August 2015 confirmed to Vice that he had become a US citizen in 2013.

'Yeah, two years back,' he said.

'And I'm very, very glad. I'll tell you what amazes me, though. Talking to American journalists, I've not heard, "Well done" or anything like it! It's just this negative wall, and I want to know what that means.

'Because let's face it: I'm no friend of any government in the world, but if the American government accepted me - of all the people in the world that could cause trouble for you - aren't you happy for me?'

Lydon said he would not have taken citizenship during the Bush years.

'But the reality is a little different now,' he said.

'America has the potential to be a nation that actually cares for its afflicted and wounded and ill and disenfranchised. That's what Obamacare has brought into the agenda.

'So it was Obama that changed my mind. No matter how insanely the Republicans yak on about it, I don't see how they can take that back. And you know what? I can vote now.

'And I'll vote properly. I'll vote for anyone who will not dismantle all those goods that people need. I don't mind spending my tax on my fellow human beings.'

Trump appears to have changed his mind.

Last week Trump received another surprising endorsement - earning the backing of the Taliban.

The endorsement, made by Zabihullah Mujahid, came just as other Taliban leaders wished the president a speedy recovery from COVID-19.

'We hope he will win the election and wind up U.S. military presence in Afghanistan,' Mujahid told CBS News.

Another Taliban leader added: 'When we heard about Trump being COVID-19 positive, we got worried for his health, but seems he is getting better.'

Tim Murtaugh, Trump's campaign spokesman, said on Saturday that they 'reject' the endorsement.

'The Taliban should know that the president will always protect American interests by any means necessary,' Murtaugh added.

In June, the president's son, Donald Trump Jr, told his father about documents found during the May 2011 raid which killed Osama bin Laden, in which the Al Qaeda leader said he hoped Biden would become president.

The secretive documents, first reported in 2012 by The Washington Post, outlined a plan to take out Obama and top U.S. military commander David Petraeus as they traveled by plane.

'The reason for concentrating on them is that Obama is the head of infidelity and killing him automatically will make [Vice President] Biden take over the presidency,' bin Laden wrote to a top deputy.

'Biden is totally unprepared for that post, which will lead the U.S. into a crisis.

'As for Petraeus, he is the man of the hour ... and killing him would alter the war's path' in Afghanistan.

Don Jr said he had recently been made aware of the documents.

'There was paperwork from Osama bin Laden saying that he wanted to kill President Obama, because it would put Joe Biden in charge,' he told his father.

'And essentially he's so grossly incompetent it would lead to the destruction of America.

'What does it say to you that, basically, the Democrat nominee got the posthumous Osama bin Laden endorsement? That this is the guy they put forth?'

Trump said he was unaware of it, but would 'immediately make a great commercial'.