President Donald Trump lobbed some insults toward two of his celebrity detractors on Friday, bashing both Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen in a pair of Truth Social posts. “Has anyone noticed that, since I said ‘I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT,’ she’s no longer ‘HOT?’” he wrote early Friday morning. “I see that Highly Overrated Bruce Springsteen goes to a Foreign Country to speak badly about the President of the United States. 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,” Trump added a few hours later.
In response, American Federation of Musicians International president Tino Gagliardi issued the following statement: “The AFM will not remain silent as two of our members — Bruce Springsteen and Taylor Swift — are singled out and personally attacked by the President of the United States. Bruce Springsteen and Taylor Swift are not just brilliant musicians, they are role models and inspirations to millions of people in the United States and across the world. Whether it’s ‘Born in the USA’ or the Eras Tour, their music is timeless, impactful and has deep cultural meaning. Musicians have the right to freedom of expression, and we stand in solidarity with all our members.”
Trump’s latest display of ire comes two days after Springsteen kicked off his European tour by calling the president “corrupt, incompetent and treasonous.” “They are persecuting people for using their right to free speech and voicing their dissent. This is happening now. In America, the richest men are taking satisfaction in abandoning the world’s poorest children to sickness and death,” the rocker told his Manchester crowd on Wednesday. “In my country, they’re taking sadistic pleasure in the pain that they inflict on loyal American workers. They’re rolling back historic civil rights legislation that led to a more just and moral society. They’re abandoning our great allies and siding with dictators against those struggling for their freedom.”
