Trump White House Responds to Bruce Springsteen’s Tour Announcement

When Bruce Springsteen announced the North American leg of his Land of Hope and Dreams tour earlier this week, he did so with another not-so-subtle jab at President Donald Trump. In a statement, he promised fans that he and the E Street Band would be “rocking your town in celebration and in defense of America — American democracy, American freedom, our American Constitution and our sacred American dream – all of which are under attack by our wannabe king and his rogue government in Washington D.C.”

While such rebukes have generated direct responses from Trump in the past, Springsteen’s pointed tour announcement appears to have passed the president by. Rather, it took Politico reaching out to the White House for comment to generate a response from senior communications director Steven Cheung. 

“When this loser Springsteen comes back home to his own City of Ruins in his head, he’ll realize his Glory Days are behind him and his fans have left him Out in the Street, putting him in a Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out because he has a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted his brain.” 

While the sentiment is obvious enough, let’s just say this shaggy dog of a (born to) run-on sentence could’ve used some editing. “Left him Out in the Street” and “putting him in a Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” feels a bit redundant. And what does it even mean for Springsteen to come “back home to his own City of Ruins in his head”? 

Springsteen has been one of Trump’s most vociferous critics throughout his political career, but the rocker has really leaned into it since the president’s second term in office began last year. Just this year, he’s spoken out forcefully against the Trump admin’s brutal immigration crackdowns, even releasing a protest song, “Streets of Minneapolis,” after the ICE killing of Alex Pretti in January. (The White House insisted the track was “random” and “irrelevant” at the time.)

As for his upcoming tour, the run is set to kick off, perhaps rather pointedly, on March 31 in Minneapolis. And it just so happens that the run will conclude on May 27 at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C.