MAGA lashes out as artists flee Trump’s Freedom 250 concert

Country singer Martina McBride in concert at Hard Rock Live, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, February 25, 2023. Geoffrey Clowes / Shutterstock.com

President Donald Trump's MAGA allies are lashing out as musicians continue to drop out of his Freedom 250 concert event, just days after the lineup was announced, per The Daily Beast.

The free concert series, set to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the U.S., was announced on Wednesday along with an initial lineup, including Bret Michaels, The Commodores, C+C Music Factory, Flo Rida, Martina McBride, Milli Vanilli, Morris Day and The Time, Vanilla Ice and Young MC. The announcement was met with both outrage and mockery, with the artists involved being chastised for getting involved with the explicitly Trump-aligned show, and deriding the lineup as meager for a show associated with such a major event.

Just days later, however, the series is already imploding, with over half of the artists backing out amid the backlash, with some claiming that they were misled about the partisan nature of the event. On Thursday evening, McBride, a best-selling country artist, became the latest to drop the show, stating that she had been "presented with an opportunity to perform at a nonpartisan event but that turned out to be misleading."

In the wake of these departures, and particularly McBride's, various MAGA allies took to social media to lash out against them. This included Richard Grenell, who previously served as Trump's Kennedy Center acting director, and knows a thing or two about musicians ditching events tainted by the president.

"You’ve always been a woke Lefty," Grenell wrote in a post to X responding to McBride.

MAGA accounts also dug up instances of McBride performing for past Democratic presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, prompting conservative accounts to lambast her as "pathetic" and a "hypocritical fraud."

"Since you are clearing the air, how about explaining why you performed at the White House during the Obama regime? Or during Bill Clinton’s scandalous presidency?" Fox News host Todd Starnes wrote in a post to X.

Various other accounts tried to compare McBride to another country act, The Chicks, formerly known as The Dixie Chicks, whose career became overwhelmed by conservative outrage in the early 2000s after they spoke out against former President George W. Bush and his Iraq War. The backlash saw their songs removed from country radio station and, at least for a times, caused their careers to plummet.

As of Friday, Michaels, The Commodores, Milli Vanilli, Morris Day and Young MC have also ditched Freedom 250, while C+C Music Factory, Flo Rida and Vanilla Ice are still slated to perform. Members of C+C Music Factory said they were initially considering dropping out, but have committed to sticking with the show despite the outrage and asserted that they are not affiliated with any political party.

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