Donald Trump isn’t making Bruce Springsteen too proud to be born in the USA, and he’s letting the president know.
In light of the ever-climbing death toll due to the coronavirus pandemic, Springsteen ditched his preplanned Wednesday show for his SiriusXM program, “From My Home to Yours,” to send a message straight to Trump:
“With 100,000-plus Americans dying over the last few months and the empty shamed response from our leaders, I’ve been simply pissed off,” Springsteen said. “Those lives deserve better than just being inconvenient statistics for our president’s reelection efforts. It’s a national disgrace.”
Instead of celebrating summer like he’d planned, the musician focused this particular show on what the country has lost and sending prayers for those who have died.
Springsteen dedicated his first song, Bob Dylan’s “Disease of Conceit,” to Trump, bluntly adding, “With all respect, sir, show some consideration and care for your countrymen and your country. Put on a fucking mask.”
The sentiments echo Springsteen’s previous statements about Trump being out of touch with what’s actually going on in the United States.
Late last year, he told CBS’s Gayle King that “the stewardship of the nation has been thrown away to somebody who doesn’t have a clue as to what that means.”
“Unfortunately, we have somebody who I feel doesn’t have a grasp of the deep meaning of what it means to be an American,” he said in the interview.
In the rest of his Wednesday show, the rock legend played poignant selections, including 2Pac’s “Changes” and Neil Young’s “When God Made Me.” He also read out the names of COVID-19 victims.
“It is a heartbreaking and lonely death for those afflicted and for those left behind to pick up the pieces,” Springsteen said.