{"id":602822,"date":"2026-02-20T06:41:28","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T06:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/602822\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T06:41:28","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T06:41:28","slug":"president-trump-introduces-gunner-stockton-at-rome-event-before-uga-quarterback-takes-stage-for-brief-message","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/602822\/","title":{"rendered":"President Trump introduces Gunner Stockton at Rome event before UGA quarterback takes stage for brief message"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Stockton greeted the 45th and 47th president on the tarmac at Rome&#8217;s airport before Trump introduced him and joked about him before asking him to speak.<\/p>\n<p>ROME, Ga. \u2014 University of Georgia quarterback Gunner Stockton was a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.11alive.com\/article\/news\/politics\/president-donald-trump-georgia-visit-thursday-remarks-coosa-steel\/85-6ede24f6-2983-4384-b5db-fab92300af39\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">guest at President Donald Trump&#8217;s event on the state of the economy<\/a> in Rome, Georgia, on Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n<p>Stockton greeted the 45th and 47th president on the tarmac at Rome&#8217;s Richard B. Russell Regional Airport alongside Lt. Gov. and Republican gubernatorial candidate Burt Jones and former U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler.<\/p>\n<p>At Trump&#8217;s event, he asked both Stockton and Heisman-winning Georgia football legend Herschel Walker, who made a political run himself for U.S. Senate in 2022, to come up with him on stage and say a few words.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have Gunner Stockton here today and he&#8217;s really good. He&#8217;s really good. But even Gunner would admit that it would be tough to beat the legend of Herschel Walker, would you agree Gunner?&#8221; Trump said. &#8220;Come on. Because Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones was a good football player too, but you were not Herschel. Hey, Herschel, come on up here with Gunner. Bring Gunner up here. Gunner has been a fan. I heard about this great quarterback for Georgia, young guy, handsome guy. We don&#8217;t like handsome guys. I don&#8217;t like being around them. I don&#8217;t want anything to do with handsome people. Gunner is a big star and a really talented quarterback. But I heard much more importantly, he&#8217;s a Trump fan. So he was standing at the plane. And anybody who likes me, I like them. And I heard he&#8217;s got a fantastic future.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Stockton took the stage and shared a brief message: &#8220;This is a great opportunity, just to meet a president and Donald Trump. This is an awesome experience and I&#8217;m just glad to be here.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Trump later joked that hitting the two guys on the back as they walked off the stage was like hitting steel due to their stature.<\/p>\n<p>The president touted his economic record as he visits the heart of Georgia&#8217;s 14th Congressional District, where early voting began this week in a special election to replace former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.<\/p>\n<p>There are 18 candidates in the crowded field, and President Trump has endorsed local District Attorney Clay Fuller among them.<\/p>\n<p>Many of Georgia&#8217;s top Republicans spoke at the event, among them Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones \u2014 who is running for governor with Trump&#8217;s endorsement \u2014 who <a href=\"https:\/\/www.11alive.com\/article\/news\/politics\/president-trump-introduces-gunner-stockton-rome-event-before-uga-quarterback-takes-stage-brief-message\/%252Farticle%252Fnews%252Fpolitics%252Fpresident-donald-trump-georgia-visit-thursday-remarks-coosa-steel%252F85-6ede24f6-2983-4384-b5db-fab92300af39\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">posted a photo on Thursday<\/a> with DA Fuller, Herschel Walker and Gunner Stockton.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>That group, along with former Sen. Kelly Loeffler, greeted Trump as he got off Air Force One at the Richard B. Russell Regional Airport in Floyd County.<\/p>\n<p>                <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"photo__placeholder\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/b312f293-6e35-44c3-a5a4-9d7c946f0381_16x9.jpg\"\/><br \/>\n                <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"photo__main\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/b312f293-6e35-44c3-a5a4-9d7c946f0381_1140x641.jpg\"  alt=\"\" style=\"opacity:0\" onload=\"this.style.opacity=1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stockton greeted the 45th and 47th president on the tarmac at Rome&#8217;s airport before Trump introduced him and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":602823,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[1318,1317,1315,1316,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-602822","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116101598237942181","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}