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Rock Legend Slaps Trump With $10M Lawsuit Over Rally Stunt

This is not the first legal battle between Neil Young and the president.

Rock icon Neil Young has filed a $10 million lawsuit against Donald Trump.

Young, 80, filed a copyright infringement suit against Trump’s action committee, Trump 47 Committee Inc., for using his song “Rockin’ in the Free World” as the president’s entrance music at his midterm campaign rallies.

In the five-page suit, Young and his lawyers, Robert Besser and Scott Simmons, describe his 1989 song as “a blistering anthem that contrasts the hollow promises of American political rhetoric with the harsh realities faced by the poor, homeless and forgotten.”

“The lyrics paint vivid street-level portraits—a mother discarding her baby, addicts lost in despair, garbage piling in the shadows of prosperity—while the repeated chorus delivers a savage irony, celebrating freedom that clearly isn’t shared by all. In short, the song is the opposite of everything that Donald J. Trump stands for.”

The suit, filed on Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, seeks an injunction against any further public performances for political purposes and $10 million in damages for its use so far.

It cites the song’s use at Trump’s rally in Youngstown, Ohio, on October 12 and also “numerous times at other rallies designed to encourage Republican votes in the upcoming mid-term elections.”

This is not the first time Young has filed a legal claim against Trump and his team. The president used “Rockin’ in the Free World” and another song in 2020, leading Young to sue Donald J. Trump for President Inc. for copyright infringement.

The latest suit notes this, saying, “Donald J. Trump for President Inc. asserted no defense and immediately settled shortly after it was served, promising that it would never again use ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’ without a license and permission from Young.”

'WANNABES'

Rock Legend Accuses Trump of ‘Destroying America’

Vic Verbalaitis

The issue began in 2015, when the then-presidential candidate used the same track for his campaign announcement. At the time, a Young spokesperson said Trump was “not authorized” to use the tune, and stated, “Neil Young, a Canadian citizen, is a supporter of Bernie Sanders for President of the United States of America.”

“Among other things, Young has suffered damage to his reputation and brand as a result of the implication that he supports Donald J. Trump in any way,” the suit says.

Young is an outspoken critic of the president, saying in January that “Donald Trump is destroying America bit by bit with his staff of wannabes, people with no experience or talent, closet alcoholic wife beaters,” adding that Trump has plagued the U.S. with ICE “soldiers” in the wake of the shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis.

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“Every move he makes is to build instability so he can stay in power… He knows nothing about love. He does not know you are. Use your love of life, your love of one another, your love of children and theirs and ours," Young wrote in a scathing editorial.

Later that month, the two-time Grammy winner donated his music to the people of Greenland amid Trump’s persistent threats to take over the Danish territory. Young said, “I hope my music and music films will ease some of the unwarranted stress and threats you are experiencing from our unpopular and hopefully temporary government.”

The Daily Beast has reached out to Young and the White House for comment.

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