President Donald Trump has whined about the acts that pulled out of performing at his disaster music event.
While several musical artists were announced for the shows, almost all of them—including the Commodores, Morris Day, Poison frontman Bret Michaels, Young MC, and headliner Martina McBride—have announced they will not be performing, claiming they were duped into believing it was a nonpartisan event rather than one organized by Trump loyalists.
A White House source told the Daily Mail earlier this week that the 79-year-old president has been embarrassed by the “Z-list” celebrities pulling out of the shows, designed, ostensibly at least, to celebrate America’s 250th birthday at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., between June 25 and July 10.
But in an interview with the New York Post’s Pod Force One, he claimed he doesn’t care. “They’re boring,” he told host Miranda Devine, claiming that he never even wanted the acts and that he doesn’t even know who they are.
Devine tried to inspire some ire in Trump by saying that the musicians who had pulled out were “cowards,” but the president disagreed with her before flying into an almost unintelligible rant.
“No, it’s not that. They get some free publicity,” Trump said.
“Look, they’re not really cowards, but I never even heard of these people. I never heard of any of them. They’re boring. I don’t, I don’t even want them. And when I heard a couple of them canceled out, I said, ‘Cancel the whole thing. I don’t wanna ... We’re gonna do a rally.’”
The president then babbled about the numbers his rallies command and how he knows the owner of Madison Square Garden.
“And a rally, nobody’s ever gotten crowds like I get at a rally. I had 118,000 people at one. I had, I have 25,000…25,000 is like a small crowd, OK? The only reason I only have 25 is because we have the basketball arenas and... like at Madison Square Garden, I went to Madison Square Garden.
“Jim Dolan’s the owner, he’s a good guy too. And he said he’s never, ever had a crowd like... so the place was packed and the crowds went down to the Hudson River and down past 5th Avenue.
“They could’ve, they could’ve sold that out, Miranda, 10 different times. He said, ‘I’ve never said anything like it.’ So we’re gonna have a rally. I told... I don’t want the mus... I, I don’t even know who they are. I don’t know their music. I don’t wanna know their music. But no, a couple of them said, ‘We don’t want anything that’s partisan.’ I said, ‘That’s OK, go someplace else.’ And we’re not looking to be partisan. We’re celebrating the country, but we’re going to do a rally, uh, a great, beautiful rally to 250 years, and it’s gonna be great.”
The 118,000 figure Trump quoted appears to be from 2023, when he attended the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines. However, his suggestion that the entire crowd came to see him is questionable. Indeed, the third day of the state fair, on which Trump attended, had just 5,000 more attendees than the third day of the 2022 state fair.
In his rambling answer to Devine, he all but confirmed that he would make himself a headliner at a hastily organized rally in D.C. instead of the music event.
Fab Morvan, the surviving member of the lip-syncing ’80s pop duo Milli Vanilli, was the latest artist to confirm they would be pulling out of the event.
“Throughout the week, it turned into a circus. And this is not what I signed for,” Morvan told CNN on Monday. “I’m not into politics. So you hear it first here. I’m not attending [the] celebration.”
Morvan added that his concerns were first raised when rapper Young MC pulled out of the event just hours after the bill was announced, claiming “artists were never told about any political involvement” with the shows.
Vanilla Ice, who has played Mar-a-Lago multiple times, Flo Rida, and C+C Music Factory are the only remaining acts from the original lineup still scheduled to perform at the Freedom 250 shows.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
