Two days after Bruce Springsteen kicked off his Land of Hope and Dreams Tour, where he labeled the Trump administration “corrupt, incompetent, racist, reckless, and treasonous,” Donald Trump, quite predictably, fired back with a scathing Truth Social post.
“Bad, and very boring singer, Bruce Springsteen, who looks like a dried up prune who has suffered greatly from the work of a really bad plastic surgeon, has long had a horrible and incurable case of Trump Derangement Syndrome, sometimes referred to as TDS,” wrote the actual president of the United States. “The guy is a total loser who spews hate against a President who won a Landslide Election, including the popular vote, all Seven Swing States, and 86% of the Counties across America. Under Sleepy Joe and the Dems, our Country was DEAD, and now we have the ‘hottest’ Country, by far, anywhere in the World. MAGA SHOULD BOYCOTT HIS OVERPRICED CONCERTS, WHICH SUCK. SAVE YOUR HARD EARNED MONEY. AMERICA IS BACK!!! President DJT.”
This is hardly the first time these two have gone at each other. At the height of the 2016 election, Springsteen told Rolling Stone that “the republic is under siege by a moron, basically. The whole thing is tragic. Without overstating it, it’s a tragedy for our democracy … The ideas he’s moving to the mainstream are all very dangerous ideas — white nationalism and the alt-right movement.”
Four years later, Springsteen unloaded again while hosting his SiriusXM show From My Home to Yours. “A good portion of our fine country, to my eye, has been thoroughly hypnotized, brainwashed by a con man from Queens,” he said. “And you mix in some jingoism, some phony patriotism, fear of a Black planet, vanity, narcissism, paranoia, conspiracy theories, and a portion of our nation undergoing mass delusions and teetering on violence, and you’re left with the greatest threat to democracy in my lifetime.”
Last year, shortly after Springsteen kicked off his European Land of Hope and Dreams Tour with an anti-Trump speech, the president responded with a post on Truth Social. “Springsteen is ‘dumb as a rock,’” Trump wrote, “and couldn’t see what was going on, or could he (which is even worse!)? This dried out ‘prune’ of a rocker (his skin is all atrophied!) ought to KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT until he gets back into the Country, that’s just ‘standard fare.’ Then we’ll all see how it goes for him!”
He followed it up three days later with an even angrier rant. “HOW MUCH DID KAMALA HARRIS PAY BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN FOR HIS POOR PERFORMANCE DURING HER CAMPAIGN FOR PRESIDENT?” he wrote. “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 am going to call for a major investigation into this matter. Candidates aren’t allowed to pay for ENDORSEMENTS, which is what Kamala did, under the guise of paying for entertainment.”
Despite the blowback, Springsteen has continued to speak his mind. On the opening night of his tour Tuesday, he paused the music several times to blast the administration. This is likely to cost him some fans, but Springsteen recently told The Minnesota Star Tribune that he’s not worried about that.
“My job is very simple: I do what I want to do, I say what I want to say, and then people get to say what they want to say about it,” he said. “Those are the rules of my game. That’s fine with me. I don’t worry about if you’re going to lose this part of your audience. I’ve always had a feeling about the position we play culturally, and I’m still deeply committed to that idea of the band. The blowback is just part of it. I’m ready for all that.”
