Just days after Bruce Springsteen invoked the ire of Donald Trump after making a series of fiery speeches criticising him, he took to the stage to once again decry his policies.
Springsteen made multiple speeches criticising the President at a Manchester gig earlier this week, where he voiced concerns about his administration’s “corruption” and “incompetence”.
In one moment, he told the audience: “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!”
It prompted an alarming post from Trump on Truth Social, in which the President wrote: “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.”
In America the richest men are gaining satisfaction abandoning the worlds poorest children through sickness and death.
Bruce Springsteen.
— James Tate (@JamesTate121) May 14, 2025
“This dried out ‘prune’ of a rocker (his skin is all atrophied!) 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!”
The post drew the attention of The American Federation of Musicians (AFM), which issued a statement defending both the ‘Born to Run’ singer and Taylor Swift after Donald Trump attacked them both on social media.
Springsteen and the E Street Band were playing the second of three scheduled shows at Manchester’s Co-Op Live last night (May 17), when The Boss – not dissuaded by Trump’s warning about his return to the country – made a resolute three-minute speech deriding Trump.
“Things are happening right now that are altering the very nature of our country’s democracy, and they’re too important to ignore,” he told the crowd, per the L.A. Times.
“In my home, they’re persecuting people for their right to free speech and voicing their dissent. That’s happening now,” Springsteen added, reinforcing what he’d spoken about at the earlier May 14 show.
Bruce Springsteen won’t be silenced. He was back at it again tonight in Manchester.
Still The Boss. pic.twitter.com/Skilu9sql4
— Molly Ploofkins (@Mollyploofkins) May 18, 2025
“In America, the richest men are taking satisfaction in abandoning the world’s poorest children to sickness and death. That’s happening now. In my country, they’re taking sadistic pleasure in the pain they inflict on loyal American workers. They’re rolling back historic civil rights legislation that led to a more just society.”
After a series of cheers, Springsteen continued: “They are removing residents off American streets without due process of law and deploying them to foreign detention centres as prisoners. That’s happening now. The majority of our elected representatives have utterly 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.”
Rounding off on a more optimistic note, the heartland rocker told the crowd the America he’d sang about for 50 years was real, “regardless of its many faults”.
“It’s a great country with a great people,” he said, “and we will survive this moment. Well, 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.’”
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