President Donald Trump is once again letting his distaste for Bruce Springsteen be known after the musician slammed him and his administration during two recent concerts.
This time, an altered video Trump shared via his Truth Social platform on Wednesday (May 21) shows the commander in chief in a red Make America Great Again cap as he takes a big swing and hits a ball on the golf course as onlookers cheer him on. The video then cuts to a scene of The Boss walking on stage during a concert, as a white dot representing the golf ball suddenly sails into the shot, hits the musician in the back and knocks him down as audio of onlookers clapping and saying “nice shot” plays. Trump did not caption the video, but also shared it on X.
Billboard has reached out to Springsteen’s reps for comment.
This latest dig at the 20-time Grammy winner comes after Springsteen spoke out against the twice-impeached president on his ongoing tour. “[America] is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration,” the rocker, who endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, said during his first Land of Hopes and Dreams Tour in Manchester, England, on May 14. “Tonight, we ask all who believe in democracy and the best of our American experience to rise with us, raise your voices against the authoritarianism, and let freedom ring.”
Trump, who in May 2024 was convicted of 34 felony charges in his hush money trial, responded in a lengthy Truth Social post on May 16 calling the artist “dumb as a rock” and going on to insult his talent. “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,’” Trump wrote the same day he also insulted Taylor Swift, who also endorsed his opponent in the election. “Then we’ll all see how it goes for him!”
Springsteen continued his criticism of the president during his May 17 show in Manchester. “In my home, they’re persecuting people for their right to free speech and voicing their dissent. That’s happening now,” the musician told concertgoers. “The majority of our elected representatives have utterly failed to protect the American people from the abuses of an unfit president and a rogue government. They have no concern or idea of what it means to be deeply American.”
Those same comments from his two concerts are included in a new six-track EP also titled Land of Hopes & Dreams, which arrived on Wednesday.
Since the back-and-forth, the president has called for investigations into Springsteen as well as other stars for allegedly joining in on an what he calls an “illegal election scam” he claims was orchestrated by Harris’ campaign. In May 19 Truth Social posts, Trump accused The Boss, Beyoncé, U2’s Bono as well as Oprah Winfrey of illegally accepting undisclosed payments to appear at the former VP’s rallies and endorse her. FactCheck.org previously disproved those allegations when they first surfaced in 2024.
After Trump initially insulted Springsteen and Swift on May 16, the American Federation of Musicians International stepped up to defend the artists. “The American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada will not remain silent as two of our members — Bruce Springsteen and Taylor Swift — are singled out and personally attacked by the President of the United States,” Tino Gagliardi, the organization’s president, said in part in a statement that day. “Musicians have the right to freedom of expression, and we stand in solidarity with all our members.”
