Donald Trump has launched a furious attack on Bruce Springsteen, labelling him a “dried out prune of a rocker.”
This week, Springsteen delivered a series of searing takedowns of the US president during a concert in Manchester.
At the first of three scheduled shows at the Co-Op Live on Wednesday, The Boss said America was “in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration.”
He accused Trump and his allies of “persecuting people for using their right to free speech” and “taking satisfaction in abandoning the world’s poorest children in sickness and death.”
Now, Trump has hit back at the rockstar in a lengthy post on his Truth Social platform.
He 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, who fervently supported Crooked Joe Biden, a mentally incompetent FOOL, and our WORST EVER President, who came close to destroying our Country.
“If I wasn’t elected, it would have been GONE by now! Sleepy Joe didn’t have a clue as to what he was doing, but Springsteen is “dumb as a rock,” and couldn’t see what was going on, or could he (which is even worse!)?”
Trump finished by saying: “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!”
Springsteen launched three separate rants at Trump at the Manchester concert this week.
He started off by telling those in attendance that he and his E Street Band are “here tonight to call upon the righteous power of art, of music, of rock ‘n’ roll in dangerous times.’
The 75-year-old continued: ‘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!”
Later in the show, the legendary rocker told fans before a performance of House of a Thousand Guitars: “The last check, the last check on power after the checks and balances of government have failed, are the people, you and me.
“It’s in the union of people around a common set of values now that’s all that stands between a democracy and authoritarianism. At the end of the day, all we’ve got is each other.”
Then, as he introduced City of Ruin, Springsteen went into another longer attack on the Republican president in his homeland.
He said: “There’s some very weird, strange, and dangerous s**t going on out there right now. In America, they are persecuting people for using their right to free speech and voicing their dissent. This is happening now.
“In America, the richest men are taking satisfaction in abandoning the world’s poorest children to sickness and death. This is 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 has led to a more just and plural society. They are abandoning our great allies and siding with dictators against those struggling for their freedom.
“They are defunding American universities that won’t bow down to their ideological demands. They are removing residents off American streets and, without due process of law, are deporting them to foreign detention centres and prisons. This is all happening now.”
But he finished on a note of hope, telling the crowd: “The America I’ve sung to you about for 50 years is real, and regardless of its faults, is a great country with great people. So we’ll survive this moment.”