Bruce Springsteen isn’t letting up on his digs at President Donald Trump and the administration he’s already ripped as “incompetent and treasonous.”
The Boss, who is in the midst of the European leg of his Land of Hope and Dreams tour with the E Street Band, told The New York Times that he wanted to use his shows’ set list to address the “current situation” in the United States.
“It’s an American tragedy,” said the rocker in a feature published on Wednesday.
He went on, “I think that it was the combination of the deindustrialization of the country and then the incredible increase in wealth disparity that left so many people behind. It was ripe for a demagogue.”
“And while I can’t believe it was this moron that came along, he fit the bill for some people. But what we’ve been living through in the last 70 days is things that we all said, ‘This can’t happen here.’ ‘This will never happen in America.’ And here we are.”
Springsteen’s criticism led to Trump raging on his Truth Social platform last month, calling the Boss “dumb as a rock” and a “dried out ‘prune’ of a rocker.”
Trump also claimed without evidence that former Vice President Kamala Harris paid Springsteen and other stars to endorse her presidential campaign and shared a wacky, edited clip of himself hitting a golf ball that cuts to a video of a “ball” hitting Springsteen.
Springsteen — who has been defended by Neil Young, Eddie Vedder and Bono amid the Trump feud — told the Times that he still has hope despite the state of the country.
“Because we have a long democratic history. We don’t have an autocratic history as a nation,” he said.
“It’s fundamentally democratic, and I believe that at some point that’s going to rear its head and things will swing back. Let’s knock on wood.”
Last month, the rocker included recordings of two of his viral speeches against Trump on his “Land of Hope & Dreams” live EP, which also includes a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Chimes of Freedom.”
The Boss reportedly hadn’t played the track — which expresses solidarity with marginalized people — live since 1988 before performing it several times on his tour this year.
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