With America’s 250th anniversary events facing a string of performer exits, US President Donald Trump is urging organizers to scrap a planned concert series and replace it with a political rally starring himself.
“We should have a giant MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN RALLY, for 250, instead of having overpriced singers, who nobody wants to hear, whose music is boring, and yet who do nothing but complain,” Mr Trump posted on his Truth Social platform, adding: “Cancel it.”
The push comes after several acts withdrew soon after being announced for a Washington concert series timed around the 4 July holiday, with some pointing to what they described as the event’s politicization.
The concerts were set to begin on 25 June on the National Mall as part of a larger celebration organized by Freedom 250, a Trump-backed public-private entity.
Mr Trump, reacting online as the departures mounted, said he believed performers were getting cold feet. “I understand Artists are getting ‘the yips'” about performing, he wrote on Truth Social, a day after a fourth and fifth act announced they were leaving, from an original roster of nine artists.
He then suggested a replacement he said would outdraw any musician. “So I am thinking about bringing the Number One Attraction anywhere in the World, the man who gets much larger audiences than Elvis in his prime…and the man who some say is the Greatest President in History (THE GOAT!), DONALD J. TRUMP, to take the place of these highly paid, Third Rate ‘Artists.'”
Mr Trump said he was directing aides to examine “the feasibility of doing an AMERICA IS BACK Rally” on the mall, where he would deliver a speech “rallying the Country forward like I have done ever since being President!”
On Friday, more withdrawals were announced. Artists including country singer Martina McBride and glam rocker Bret Michaels, the frontman of the 1980s band Poison, said they would no longer take part in the concert series.
“Unfortunately, what was presented to us as a celebration of our country has evolved into something much more divisive than what I agreed to be a part of,” Michaels posted on Facebook.
Mr Trump has made clear he intends to put his stamp on the anniversary observances, highlighted by plans for a mixed martial arts fight in a specially built arena on the White House lawn on 14 June, which is his 80th birthday.
As the lineup shifted, the remaining slate of musicians—whose peak years were decades ago, including Vanilla Ice and C+C Music Factory—has drawn a wave of sarcastic reactions on social media.
Read more:
US judge orders removal of Trump’s name from Kennedy Center
