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Rolling Stone Music Now

Bruce Springsteen Takes on Donald Trump — and Trump Takes on Taylor Swift, Bruce, and Beyoncé

Rolling Stone Music Now

Rolling Stone | Cumulus Podcast Network

Music Commentary, Music, Music Interviews

41K Ratings

🗓️ 24 May 2025

⏱️ 44 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Why is President Trump calling for investigations into the world's biggest music stars? We look into a very weird battle, with Andy Greene joining host Brian Hiatt Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

I'm Brian Hyatt. This is Rolling Stone Music Now. Now it's going to air another episode this week, but events intruded.

0:09.8

Those events began at a Bruce Springsteen in the East Street band concert in Manchester, England, where Bruce began a frontal verbal assault against President Donald Trump.

0:21.6

And then Donald Trump, because apparently he has nothing better to do, nothing going on in the

0:27.6

world, decided to shoot back on truth social.

0:31.6

And before he shot back at Bruce, he took a shot in the same day at Taylor Swift. He said that Taylor Swift is no longer hot since he said that he hated her.

0:41.3

I'm sure the lack of cultural energy focused on Taylor Swift right now has nothing to do with the fact that she just ended the biggest tour of all time and has been deliberately out of the public.

0:51.3

I'm sure it's because of something that Donald Trump says.

0:53.3

But begun this pop culture war has, and I thought that I'd have Andy Green here to try to break

0:59.9

this all down. This was a very clear statement that Bruce made and wanted to make big.

1:05.2

Welcome to the Land of Hope and Dreams tour. The mighty East Street band is here tonight to call upon the righteous power of art, of music, of rock and roll in dangerous times.

1:26.6

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.

1:54.1

Tonight, we ask all who believe in democracy in the best of our American experience to rise with us, raise your voices against authoritarianism, and let freedom ring.

2:01.5

Trump returns to it on May 19th.

2:04.6

As our brilliant colleagues in the politics department at Rolling Stone pointed out,

2:08.4

this was how he prepared for a very important phone call with Vladimir Putin about the war in Ukraine.

2:14.7

When he was supposed to be prepping for that, he writes a screed about the biggest music stars in the world.

2:19.2

At 1.34 a.m. the night before the phone call.

2:21.9

It's amazing.

2:23.1

All caps.

2:24.3

How much did Kamala Harris pay Bruce Springsteen for his poor performance during her campaign for president?

2:32.4

Why did he accept that money if he is such a fan of hers?

2:36.2

Isn't that a major and illegal campaign contribution?

...

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