U.S. President Donald Trump escalated his feud with Bruce Springsteen over the lengthy weekend, calling for a “main investigation” into the rock legend after Springsteen branded the Trump administration as “corrupt, incompetent and treasonous” throughout a live performance in England final week.
Early Monday, as Trump was making ready to satisfy with Russian President Vladimir Putin, he took to Fact Social to put up a prolonged, all-caps screed towards Springsteen and different Hollywood A-listers who endorsed Kamala Harris throughout final 12 months’s presidential election.
“HOW MUCH DID KAMALA HARRIS PAY BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN FOR HIS POOR PERFORMANCE DURING HER CAMPAIGN FOR PRESIDENT?” Trump wrote on-line, in a message printed in the midst of the evening. “WHY DID HE ACCEPT THAT MONEY IF HE IS SUCH A FAN OF HERS? ISN’T THAT A MAJOR AND ILLEGAL CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION? WHAT ABOUT BEYONCÉ? … AND HOW MUCH WENT TO OPRAH, AND BONO???”
“I’m going to name for a serious investigation into this matter. Candidates aren’t allowed to pay for ENDORSEMENTS, which is what Kamala did, beneath the guise of paying for leisure,” the president continued in his rant. “As well as, this was a really costly and determined effort to artificially construct up her sparse crowds. IT’S NOT LEGAL! For these unpatriotic ‘entertainers,’ this was only a CORRUPT & UNLAWFUL strategy to capitalize on a damaged system.”
@realDonaldTrump / Fact Social
He didn’t cease there, nevertheless. Practically eight hours later, he returned to the topic.
“In accordance with information experiences, Beyoncé was paid $11,000,000 to stroll onto a stage, shortly ENDORSE KAMALA, and stroll off to loud booing for by no means having carried out, NOT EVEN ONE SONG!” he wrote.
“Bear in mind, the Democrats and Kamala illegally paid her tens of millions of {Dollars} for doing nothing apart from giving Kamala a full throated ENDORSEMENT.
Switching again to all-caps, he concluded: “THIS IS AN ILLEGAL ELECTION SCAM AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL! IT IS AN ILLEGAL CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION! BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, OPRAH, BONO AND, PERHAPS, MANY OTHERS, HAVE A LOT OF EXPLAINING TO DO!!!”
@realDonaldTrump / Fact Socila
None of Trump’s claims have been substantiated.
Get breaking Nationwide information
For information impacting Canada and world wide, join breaking information alerts delivered on to you after they occur.
Springsteen, a longtime opponent of the president, stood up as one among Trump’s most distinguished cultural critics final week with a verbal takedown from a British stage.
He informed a Manchester viewers that he believes Trump is “unfit” for the Oval Workplace.
Whereas introducing his and the E Avenue Band’s track Land of Hopes and Desires, after which his present tour is known as, the 75-year-old Springsteen mentioned, “In my dwelling, the America I like, the America I’ve written about, that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years, is at present within the palms of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration.”
“The final examine on energy after the checks and balances of presidency have failed are the individuals, you and me. It’s within the union of individuals round a typical set of values now — that’s all that stands between a democracy and authoritarianism. So on the finish of the day, all we’ve acquired is one another,” Springsteen continued later within the present.
In reply, Trump later bashed The Boss as “Extremely Overrated” and “not a gifted man.”
“I see that Extremely Overrated Bruce Springsteen goes to a Overseas Nation to talk badly in regards to the President of america,” Trump wrote on Fact Social. “By no means favored him, by no means favored his music, or his Radical Left Politics and, importantly, he’s not a gifted man.”
He went on to accuse Springsteen of being a “pushy, obnoxious JERK” and “dumb as a rock,” earlier than zeroing in on his look.
“This dried out ‘prune’ of a rocker (his pores and skin is all atrophied!) should KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT till he will get again into the Nation,” the president wrote, seeming to threaten Springsteen with penalties when he returns to U.S. soil.
“Then we’ll all see the way it goes for him!”
Springsteen endorsed Harris final fall, a couple of month earlier than the election, suggesting Trump ought to have been disqualified from operating on account of his “disdain for the sanctity of our structure, the sanctity of democracy, the sanctity of the rule of legislation, and the sanctity of the peaceable switch of energy.”
Springsteen isn’t new to this sport
It’s not the primary time Springsteen has spoken out towards Trump — or a Republican president.
When former president Ronald Reagan referenced Springsteen’s “message of hope” at a marketing campaign cease through the peak of the rocker’s Born within the USA reputation, Springsteen puzzled if Reagan had listened to his music and its references to these left behind within the Eighties financial system.
He additionally has had an sometimes bumpy relationship with one-time Republican presidential candidate and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, a fan of his music.
Bruce Springsteen performs through the first evening of ‘The Land of Hopes and Desires’ tour at Co-op Reside on Might 14, 2025, in Manchester, England.
Shirlaine Forrest / Getty Photographs
Springsteen has campaigned for Trump’s opponents, together with Harris final fall. In 2020, he mentioned that “a great portion of our tremendous nation, to my eye, has been completely hypnotized, brainwashed by a con man from Queens.”
Throughout his profession, Springsteen has challenged his viewers politically past presidential endorsements. The 1995 album The Ghost of Tom Joad bluntly documented the lives of struggling immigrants — Mexican and Vietnamese amongst them. And his 2001 track American Pores and skin (41 Pictures), criticized the taking pictures by New York Metropolis cops of an unarmed Guinean immigrant named Amadou Diallo, angering among the blue-collar segments of his fan base.
— With information from World Information’ Rachel Goodman and The Related Press
© 2025 World Information, a division of Corus Leisure Inc.
