Musical icon Paul McCartney said that the power of music can bring anyone together, even mending the polarizing rifts caused by President Donald Trump.
Appearing on an episode of The Rest Is Entertainment podcast on Wednesday, the Beatles songwriter discussed the dual duty of being both an entertainer and an artist, noting that some of the most popular songs by the legendary group can still unify people to this day.
“Particularly these days, too, you do something like ‘Hey Jude’ and you see this whole audience singing together,“ McCartney, 83, said, before sharing a cutting condemnation of Trump, 79. ”I mean, in Trump’s America, and the Republicans and Democrats all at each other’s throats—when we do that song, they’re not."
“They’re all loving it, and it’s like, wow, this is pretty amazing,” the former Beatle added. “You know, suddenly this room has forgotten all of that, and it’s not, you know, going to argue with each other, they’re just going to sing together. So those kinds of things, I think, are valuable.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
It’s not the first time the legendary Wings frontman has shared his disdain for the commander-in-chief.
In his 2021 book The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, McCartney seemingly called out Trump directly, writing: “We’re faced with the political situation, particularly in the U.S., where a braggart has been in charge and seems quite unstable to say the least. He’s shouting the loudest, but he’s not necessarily the smartest.”
“I often think, ‘How can a person get away with some of the things he says?’ But then, two days later, the news cycle will have brought us something else he’s said, and then the thing we thought the person would never get away with has gone, and it’s difficult to bring it back,” the Beatle added.
McCartney also likened the near-octogenarian president to a “crazy” ship captain in his 2018 track railing against climate change deniers, “Despite Repeated Warnings.”
“People who deny climate change... I just think it’s the most stupid thing ever,” he told the BBC in 2018. “So I just wanted to make a song that would talk about that and basically say, ‘Occasionally, we’ve got a mad captain sailing this boat we’re all on, and he is just going to take us to the iceberg [despite] being warned it’s not a cool idea.”
Asked whether the “mad captain” referred to anyone in particular, McCartney replied, “Well, I mean obviously it’s Trump, but there’s plenty of them about. He’s not the only one.”
Another famous rocker, Sir Rod Stewart, also voiced criticism of Trump directly to King Charles III on Monday, referring to the president as a “little ratbag.”
“You were superb. Absolutely superb,” Stewart, 81, told the King. “You put that little ratbag in his place.
Stewart also labeled Trump a “draft dodger” in an Instagram video posted in January.
