Lydon became a citizen of the United States in 2013 because he "believed in Barack Obama" and his health care reform, on which he states, "his healthcare thing didn't quite work out what we all want, but there is a great potential there. Now we're looking at dismantling and, you know, a crazy loony monster party."

Before Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, Lydon said, in response to questions about his prospects: "No, I can't see it happening, it's a minority that support him at best, and it's so hateful and ignorant." In 2017, though, he said "I'm up for anyone shaking up the jaded world of politicians". During a Good Morning Britain interview in March 2017, Lydon described Trump as a "complicated fellow" who "terrifies politicians". Lydon said that there were "many, many problems with (Trump) as a human being" but defended him against accusations of racism: "What I dislike is the left-wing media in America are trying to smear the bloke as a racist and that's completely not true." He elaborated to NPR: "He's a total cat amongst the pigeons ... [He's] got everybody now involving themselves in a political way. And I've been struggling for years to get people to wake up and do that."

In 2018, Lydon was photographed wearing a shirt that read Trump's campaign slogan Make America Great Again. In October 2020, Lydon told the BBC's Newsday programme, "Yes, of course, I'm voting for Trump ... I don't want a politician running this world anymore." A month later, during an interview on Good Morning Britain, Lydon confirmed he had voted for Trump in the then-upcoming presidential election, describing Trump's Democratic opponent Joe Biden and his 2016 Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton as champagne socialists. He also described his support for Trump as stemming from his background as a working class Englishman and accused the US media of being dominated by liberal ideology, but "liberal with the truth" and claimed "they toe the line of the Democrat party by assumption that they know what's best, yet they don't know nothing about blue collar workers, Latinos, African-Americans in or outside of large cities."