President Donald Trump’s rocker nemesis Bruce Springsteen has kept his promise that his new tour will be “very political.”
The Boss, 76, opened the first night of his Land of Hope and Dreams tour by eviscerating the president on stage.
“Democracy, our Constitution, and our sacred American promise, the America that I love, the America that I’ve written about for 50 years, that’s been a beacon of hope and liberty around the world, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent, racist, reckless, and treasonous administration,” Springsteen began on the tour’s opener in Minneapolis.
The rocker then told the crowd to join him “in choosing hope over fear, democracy over authoritarianism, the rule of law over lawlessness, ethics over unbridled corruption, resistance over complacency, unity over and peace over...,” before launching into a rendition of The Temptations’ song “War.”
Springsteen’s concert lasted nearly three hours, reports Variety, and he peppered political jeers toward the Trump administration between the 27 songs he performed alongside the E Street Band.
The rocker slammed the actions of ICE, the Justice Department, and Attorney General Pam Bondi; he also ripped into the corruption of Trump and his “powerful friends,” and the ongoing conflict in Iran, which he deemed “unconstitutional and illegal.”
Springsteen opened the night by offering a prayer “for our men and women in service overseas—we pray for their safe return.”
“To many, we are no longer looked upon as an often imperfect but strong defender of democracy standing for the global good; we are no longer the land of the free and the home of the brave,” he said.
“We are now, to many, America the reckless, unpredictable, predatory rogue nation. That is this administration’s and this president’s legacy.”
The 20-time Grammy winner urged the crowd to remember ideals of “honesty, honor, humility, compassion, thoughtfulness, morality, true strength, and decency.”
“Don’t let anybody tell you that these things don’t matter anymore. They do,” he continued. “They are at the heart of the kind of men and women we are, the kind of citizens we are, the kind of country we’ll be leaving to our children. So many of our elected leaders have failed us that this American tragedy can only be stopped by the American people.”
“So join us and let’s fight for the America that we love,” he said.
Springsteen also condemned Trump’s orders to “whitewash American history” throughout the country’s museums. “Our museums are being told to whitewash American history of any unpleasant or inconvenient facts like the full history of the brutality of slavery. You want to talk about snowflakes?” he said. “We have a president who can’t handle the truth.”
He continued to roast the president, saying that “we have a leader who says he wishes nothing but ill upon the people he disagrees with, and who disagree with him.”
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung called Springsteen a “loser” and accused the award-winning singer of having “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
In a statement littered with Springsteen’s song titles, Cheung said: “When this loser Springsteen comes back home to his own City of Ruins in his head, he’ll realize his Glory Days are behind him, and his fans have left him Out in the Street, putting him in a Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out because he has a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted his brain.”
Trump is more than aware of Springsteen’s dislike for him, and attempted to fire back at him on Truth Social last May: “Never liked him, never liked his music, or his Radical Left Politics and, importantly, he’s not a talented guy — Just a pushy, obnoxious JERK.”
Springsteen is no stranger to intertwining politics with his art. He chose to open in Minneapolis following the deaths of two U.S. citizens in the city at the hands of ICE.
“We will be rocking your town in celebration and in defense of America—American democracy, American freedom, our American Constitution, and our sacred American dream—all of which are under attack by our wannabe king and his rogue government in Washington, D.C.,” he said in an announcement before the tour.
The decision to open in Minneapolis followed the release of “Streets of Minneapolis,” Springsteen’s political anthem that lambasts Trump and memorializes Alex Pretti and Renée Good.
Closing the opening night, Springsteen told the audience that his tour “was not planned,” but that he and the E Street Band “want to bring some hope and some strength for you.”
”I hope we did that. All I can say is God bless Alex Pretti, God bless Renée Good, God bless you, and God bless America.”
