Bruce Springsteen Pauses U.K. Show to Rip ‘Treasonous’ Trump: ‘They’re Taking Sadistic Pleasure in the Pain’
Bruce Springsteen launched his European tour Wednesday night with a denunciation of President Donald Trump, calling his administration “corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous” during a performance before thousands of Britons.
The 75-year-old rocker paused multiple times during his set to condemn U.S. leadership.
According to Variety, while introducing his tour’s namesake song, “Land of Hope and Dreams,” Springsteen declared:
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.
Tonight, we ask all who believe in democracy and the best of our American experiment to rise with us, raise your voices against authoritarianism, and let freedom ring!
Springsteen later declared his country had “abandoned” the poor and that its “sadistic” leaders were enjoying the misery being inflicted.
“In America, the richest men are taking satisfaction in abandoning the world’s poorest children to sickness and death. This is happening now,” he said. “In my country, they’re taking sadistic pleasure in the pain they inflict on loyal American workers.” Springsteen added:
They’re rolling back historic civil rights legislation that led to a more just and plural society. They are abandoning our great allies and siding with dictators against those struggling for their freedom. They are defunding American universities that won’t bow down to their ideological demands.
They are removing residents off American streets and, without due process of law, are deporting them to foreign detention centres and prisons. This is all happening now. 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.
He concluded with a quote from late civil rights activist James Baldwin.
“The America I’ve sung to you about for 50 years is real and, regardless of its faults, is a great country with a great people,” he said. “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.’ Let’s pray.”
