Bruce Springsteen has never been shy about where he stands when it comes to politics, and he’s not about to stop now. In a new Time cover story published Thursday (Sept. 25), the Boss explains why he’s called out and will continue to call out President Donald Trump.
“I’m going to stay true to who I’ve tried to be … I can’t give these guys a free pass,” he told the magazine about speaking out during the kickoff show of his Land of Hope and Dreams Tour in Manchester, England, on May 14. During that set, the 20-time Grammy winner slammed the president, saying that the United States was “currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration.” (His speech was included in The Land of Hope and Dreams EP, which arrived in May.)
Two days after Springsteen shared his stance about the current occupant of the White House on stage, Trump responded to the insult on his Truth Social platform, calling the Boss a “jerk” who’s “not talented” and “dumb as a rock,” then warned the musician to “KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT until he gets back into the Country.”
But Springsteen — who endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in the 2024 election — told Time he “couldn’t care less” what the twice-impeached president thinks of him. “He’s the living personification of what the 25th Amendment and impeachment were for,” he said. (The 25th Amendment refers to the removal of the president from office.) “If Congress had any guts, he’d be consigned to the trash heap of history.”
His verbal clashes with the president this year didn’t end there. After Springsteen’s onstage criticism of the commander in chief, Trump accused the musician and Beyoncé — who both campaigned for Harris — of taking part in an “illegal election scam” by allegedly accepting payment for their appearances; the claims were debunked. And in a June New York Times interview, the rocker went on to call Trump a “moron” and also slammed the ICE raids around the country as “disgusting, and a terrible tragedy.”
Springsteen went on to say in the Time interview that “a lot of people bought into [Trump’s] lies,” and yet, he added, “[The president] doesn’t care about the forgotten anybody but himself and the multibillionaires who stood behind him on Inauguration Day. … You have to face the fact that a good number of Americans are simply comfortable with his politics of power and dominance.”
Billboard has reached out to the White House for comment.
While the rocker has been tough on Trump, he didn’t go easy on Democrats in his Time interview, either. “We’re desperately in need of an effective alternative party, or for the Democratic Party to find someone who can speak to the majority of the nation,” he stated. “There is a problem with the language that they’re using and the way they’re trying to reach people.”
Coming up next for Springsteen is the expanded five-disc edition of his celebrated 1982 album, Nebraska, which arrives Oct. 12. Nebraska ’82: Expanded Edition will include never-before-heard material, the E Street Band’s “Electric Nebraska” sessions, a previously unreleased version of Billboard Hot 100 No. 9 hit “Born in the U.S.A.” and much more. Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, the film about the making of Nebraska and starring The Bear‘s Jeremy Allen White as the Boss, arrives in theaters Oct. 24.
See Springsteen’s Time magazine cover below:
