Bruce Springsteen preserved his criticisms of the Trump administration in his newest streaming tracks.
Springsteen began his “Land of Hope and Dreams” tour in Manchester, England, and subsequently released recordings of his live performance. One 90-second track includes his rant against President Donald Trump.
“The mighty E Street Band is here tonight to call upon the righteous power of art, of music, of rock ‘n’ roll, in dangerous times. In my home, the America I love, the America I’ve written about, that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous administration,” Springsteen says on the track.
“Tonight, we ask all who believe in democracy and the best of our American experience to rise with us, raise your voices against the authoritarianism, and let freedom ring,” Springsteen adds before the track ends. The next track is followed by the song “Land of Hope and Dreams.”
Springsteen also introduces the song “Long Walk Home” by saying, “This is a prayer for my country” on the live recording, and just before the song “My City of Ruins,” another complaint from the Manchester concert can be heard.
“In America, the richest men are taking satisfaction in abandoning the world’s poorest children to sickness and death. This is happening now,” Springsteen says. “In my country, they’re taking sadistic pleasure in the pain that they inflict on loyal American workers, through rolling back historic civil rights legislation that led to a more just and plural society, through abandoning our great allies and siding with dictators against those struggling for their freedom. They’re defunding American universities that won’t bow down to their ideological demands. They’re removing residents off American streets and, without due process of law, are deporting them to foreign detention centers and prisons.”
Springsteen goes on to say the “majority of our elective representatives have failed to protect the American people from the abuses of an unfit president and a rogue government.”
Trump seemingly responded to Springsteen’s release with an edited video of himself hitting a golf ball in a Wednesday Truth Social post. In the video, an animated ball jumps into a clip of Springsteen, hitting him in the back before he falls face-first onstage. The clip was from 2023, when Springsteen fell before a crowd in Amsterdam.
“I see that Highly Overrated Bruce Springsteen goes to a Foreign Country to speak badly about the President of the United States,” Trump said on Truth Social days before posting the video. “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, who fervently supported Crooked Joe Biden, a mentally incompetent FOOL, and our WORST EVER President, who came close to destroying our Country.”
SPRINGSTEEN BLASTS TRUMP’S ‘CORRUPT, INCOMPETENT, TREASONOUS ADMINISTRATION’ AT UK SHOW
Springsteen has long opposed Trump. Last year, he condemned the Trump campaign’s use of his songs.
The live tracks are being released ahead of Springsteen’s seven-album set Tracks II: The Lost Albums, which is scheduled to be released on June 27.