President Donald Trump on Saturday proposed dropping all the musical acts booked to celebrate the nation’s 250th birthday in Washington, DC, and hosting a rally instead after nearly a half dozen of the scheduled artists dropped out of the concert series.
Earlier Saturday, Freedom 250, the group organizing the event, had announced Trump would “kick off” the state fair on June 24 with an opening ceremony.
“As the visionary behind the Great American State Fair, we are excited to announce that President Trump will personally kick off this historic celebration on Wednesday, June 24 in an opening ceremony celebrating America’s 250th birthday,” said Danielle Alvarez, a spokesperson for Freedom 250.
However, on his Truth Social platform later Saturday, the president said he was considering an “America is Back” rally that would “give a major speech, rallying the country forward.”
Several news outlets described the move as Trump turning the event into a “MAGA rally.”
It was one of two posts regarding the event that day.
In the first he wrote:
I understand Artists are getting “the yips” having to do with their performance on Wednesday, 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 he does so without a guitar, the man who loves our Country more than anyone else, 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,” and give a major speech, rallying the Country forward like I have done ever since being President!
Trump went on to cite the success of his administration saying that two years ago “the country was dead” and now it was the “hottest” in the world.
Then on Saturday night, he launched a second post, suggesting the entire live concert part of the program should be cancelled.
He wrote, “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.”
He went on to link the effort to the controversy over the rennovation of the Kennedy Center, the district’s iconic music and performance venue.
He wrote:
Cancel it, just like I canceled my involvement with the failing and unsafe to be in Kennedy Center, because a Highly Conflicted, Crooked Federal Judge, said that I should not be allowed to spend my time and money in order to MAKE THE CENTER GREAT AGAIN, actually, far greater than it ever was before! It would have also been nice to see a Republican/Democrat union bring it back to life. The Kennedy Center is broken, unsafe, and $busted, and has been for many years!
Last week, a judge ordered Trump to remove his name from the Kennedy Center and to cease renovations.
Trump chided that he was transferring responsibility for the complex over to Congress while predicting they would fail at the task. In his Saturday post, he demanded the judge get impeached.
Freedom 250 last week announced the artists who would perform on the National Mall from June 24 to July 10.
Shortly afterward, announcing their withdrawals were Morris Day and the Time, Young MC, the Commodores, Martina McBride, and Bret Michaels, claiming “to be misled” or having “other grievances,” the New York Post reported.
Still participating so far are Fab Morvan of Milli Vanilli, Vanilla Ice, C+C Music Factory rapper Freedom Williams and Flo Rida are still scheduled to perform.
Rapper Vanilla Ice, 58, said in a social media post he was “honored” to participate and that “music is made to bring people together.
In a video shared to his Instagram, he said, “It’s all about enjoying the great times of 250 years. From George Washington to now. All the presidents and everybody in between, this is a magical event that’s gonna happen.”
“It’s very rare. I’m honored, man,” he continued. “This is gonna be epic. And that’s it. We don’t take anything too seriously, and we’re gonna bring the ‘90s, that’s how it works.”
Meanwhile, a representative for Freedom 250 told the Hill’s podcast that the event was designed to be nonpartisan.
“It is inherently nonpolitical. It is a celebration of our country,” pokesperson Julia Friedland told the Hill’s YouTube broadcast Sunrise on the Hill. “I don’t think there’s anything partisan about America being around for 250 years,”
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times true crime best seller House of Secrets and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.