Donald Trump, who had “Born in the U.S.A.” on his 2016 campaign rally soundtrack, insisted he’s “never liked” Bruce Springsteen or his music after the musician called the president “incompetent and treasonous” at his 2025 European tour kick-off.
Such biting words from such a famous and revered rockstar unsurprisingly got under the skin of the president, even as he’s in the middle of a trip through the Middle East and planning to accept $400 million luxury jets from Qatar. He fired off a Truth Social post Friday morning calling Springsteen “Highly Overrated” and “not a talented guy — Just a pushy, obnoxious JERK.”
Trump proceeded to lash out at Springsteen for his support of former president Joe Biden, calling the musician “dumb as a rock,” and a “dried out ‘prune’ of a rocker (his skin is all atrophied!).” The president also seemed particularly fixated on the fact that Springsteen made his comments abroad, and closed his message with the simultaneously outlandish, but also disconcertingly ominous (in light of well, everything) claim that Springsteen “ought to KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT until he gets back into the Country, that’s just ‘standard fare.’ Then we’ll all see how it goes for him!”
Springsteen has, of course, criticized Trump plenty of times on American soil. In a 2016 interview with Rolling Stone, Springsteen called Trump a “moron,” and at a 2024 campaign rally for Kamala Harris, he called Trump an “American tyrant.” At his recent tour opener in England, Springsteen said the U.S. was “in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous administration.”
Later in the show, before playing “My City of Ruins,” Springsteen added, “A majority of our elected representatives have failed to protect the American people from the abuses of an unfit president and a rogue government. They have no concern or idea of what it means to be deeply American. The America l’ve sung to you about for 50 years is real, and, regardless of its faults, is a great country with a great people. So we’ll survive this moment. Now, I have hope, because I believe in the truth of what the great American writer James Baldwin said, he said, ‘In this world there isn’t as much humanity as one would like, but there’s enough.’”
