Bruce Springsteen's Most Ego-Shattering Digs At Donald Trump

Notably, Bruce Springsteen broke out of his political shell decades before Donald Trump stepped into the picture. When Ronald Reagan was delivering a speech in the rocker's home state of New Jersey as part of his 1984 reelection campaign, he gave him a shoutout. As The Ringer noted, the divisive Republican politician enthused that "America's future [...] rests in the message of hope in songs of a man so many young Americans admire — New Jersey's own Bruce Springsteen." 

While Reagan believed that he was the man who could transform the American dream into a reality, The Boss felt otherwise. While performing at a show a few days later, the Grammy winner quipped that the then-president likely hadn't listened to his 1982 album "Nebraska" closely enough to realize how unhappy he was with the state of the country. Then, Springsteen played "Johnny 99," a track off the EP that told the story of a man named Johnny who lost his job in an automobile factory and had to resort to violence to make ends meet until he got caught and demanded an execution. 

As The Inquirer pointed out, Springsteen's jabs didn't stop there either as he apparently subtly criticized Reagan without invoking his name: "There's something really dangerous happening to us out there now. We're slowly getting split up into two different Americas. There's a promise getting broken." Additionally, The Boss reckoned the "American dream" wasn't about getting as rich as possible but living "a life with some decency and some dignity." As the years passed, Springsteen grew more comfortable voicing his political opinions. So, he obviously wasn't afraid to repeatedly hit Trump where it hurts.

The drama between Bruce Springsteen and Donald Trump started in the same way that most of the divisive politician's feuds do: With a left-field remark, seemingly out of nowhere. While speaking at a reelection campaign event in Minneapolis in October 2019, Trump asserted that his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, used big names like Beyoncé and Jay-Z to draw crowds to her own rallies in 2016. The outspoken Republican boasted that he didn't require the backing of A-listers like the power couple and "little Bruce Springsteen" to get people to listen to him (via Variety). Further, Trump claimed that people would clear out after The Boss performed, leaving Clinton to address a much smaller crowd. 

When Springsteen chatted with Gayle King for "CBS This Morning" later in the month, she inquired about his reaction to the sly dig. The "Born In The USA" hitmaker reasoned that the shade wasn't terribly shocking because it was in line with Trump's usual childish antics. Then, Springsteen delivered a scathing criticism of him: "The stewardship of the nation is — has been thrown away to somebody who doesn't have a clue as to what that means [...] And unfortunately, we have somebody who I feel doesn't have a grasp of the deep meaning of what it means to be an American." 

Of course, the prolific performer also denounced the controversial politician during his 2016 campaign. Springsteen didn't mince his words while describing Trump in a 2016 Rolling Stone interview, decrying that "The republic is under siege by a moron." Moreover, the iconic rocker warned that Trump's dangerous ideologies could create a harmful precedent for the country.

In an October 2016 chat with Channel 4 News, Bruce Springsteen wrote off Donald Trump's rants about the 2020 presidential election being rigged as the words of a "flagrant, toxic narcissist." The Boss argued that the GOP politician's ego prevented him from reflecting on his mistakes and understanding how his far-fetched claims could incite violence among his most ardent supporters. Likewise, the "Dancin' In The Dark" hitmaker further condemned Trump by warning that he was unraveling the fabric of democracy with his words. 

During a performance in Pennsylvania the previous month, Springsteen shared a similar sentiment by quipping that the American constitution likely had "F**k Trump" written on the front (via YouTube). After the rocker took the stage at Hillary Clinton's campaign rally in Philadelphia, in November 2016, he took another shot at Trump's ego: "[He] is a man whose vision is limited to little beyond himself, who has a profound lack of decency that would allow him to prioritize his own interests and ego before American democracy itself," per Springsteen.net. 

Springsteen stated that the president would rather watch the country fall into disarray instead of recognizing that he could only blame himself for his "epic failure." The Boss' scathing criticism of Trump could have hurt him more than we realized because he may have been a bit of a fan of his music. The divisive politician used his songs for his 2016 campaign rallies, and Springsteen's remarks weren't enough for him to delete the tracks from his playlist. As a result, "Born In The USA" and "Glory Days" were met with boos at a November 2016 rally.

Over the years, Donald Trump has used several insecurity-ridden, shady nicknames for his many detractors that have backfired more than once. For instance, the outspoken politician added "Crooked" to both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden's names to get voters to see them as distrustful. However, Bruce Springsteen reckons that Trump has been the crooked one all along. Speaking to the BBC in 2016, the Grammy winner labeled the president "a con man" who had deceived people into thinking he understood their complex problems and had a simple solution for them. 

In "Springsteen On Broadway," the iconic rock star stated that Trump's policies were regressing America to a dark place, one that the country had already long evolved from. Springsteen's opinion obviously didn't change during his 2020 reelection campaign. In an October 2020 episode of his SiriusXM show "From My Home to Yours," The Boss once again denounced the Republican for building his campaign around deluding people, adding, "You mix in some jingoism, some phony patriotism, fear of a black planet, vanity, narcissism, paranoia, conspiracy theories, and a portion of our nation undergoing mass delusions and teetering on violence, and you're left with the greatest threat to democracy in my lifetime," (via USA Today). 

Likewise, in his October 2024 Instagram video endorsing Trump's Democratic opponent Kamala Harris, Springsteen argued that he should have been disqualified altogether because of his refusal to peacefully hand power over to Biden in 2020, as well as his blatant disregard for American values and laws. Later in the month, The Boss told a Harris rally crowd that the Republican was vying to be an "American tyrant," (via YouTube).

Before Bruce Springsteen performed "My City in Ruins" during a May 2025 concert in Manchester, he lamented that his beloved homeland was "currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration," (via Instagram). The "Hungry Heart" hitmaker criticized Donald Trump's administration for aligning itself with dictators instead of helping the people they were oppressing. Springsteen continued, "They are taking sadistic pleasure in the pain that they inflict on loyal American workers, they are rolling back historic civil rights legislation that led to a more just and moral society." 

Before launching into the track, the legendary rocker urged the crowd to continue to combat authoritarianism as loudly as possible. Trump proved that Springsteen's speech bruised his ego by going after him for the most ironic thing ever. In a Truth Social post, the oldest U.S. president to be sworn in took aim at the Grammy winner's age, labeling him a "dried out prune." Despite using Springsteen's music at plenty of rallies in the past, Trump also called him "overrated" and a "pushy, obnoxious JERK." 

The iconic rocker didn't have to resort to childish insults to continue to poke at Trump's fragile ego. Instead, all he had to do was deliver the same speech during his next show to demonstrate that he was unbothered by the president's social media rant. A couple of days later, Trump's immaturity reached a fever pitch as he shared an odd video amidst his nasty feud with Springsteen. In the edited clip, the "Apprentice" alum hit a golf ball that "landed" on the prolific performer and knocked him off his feet while he was on stage.

pic.twitter.com/ZuagVWL4KS

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 21, 2025

In 2017, Bruce Springsteen collaborated with fellow musician Joe Grushecky on a track called "That's What Makes Us Great." While the song's title was evidently a play on Donald Trump's infamous Make America Great Again slogan, its lyrics were a strong critique of his administration's divisive immigration policies. Although Springsteen doesn't have a writing credit on the track, it still notably called back to his past criticism of the president, especially with the lyrics: "I never put my faith in a con man and his crooks." 

Although Springsteen called out George W. Bush's administration in his 2007 album "Magic," he later clarified to Rolling Stone in 2020 that he had no desire to write a similar LP about Trump, quipping, "That would be the most boring album in the world." However, he conceded that "Rainmaker," off his 2020 album "Letter To You," could be seen as a good representation of the controversial politician, even though it wasn't based on him. The track tells the story of a crooked man who swindles desperate farmers by giving them false hope that he can end the drought that has been affecting their livelihood. 

However, Springsteen still twisted the knife in Trump's ego by compiling his Manchester performance into the "Land of Hopes and Dreams" EP in May 2025. Around the time of its release, the president took to Truth Social to demand a probe into the rocker because he believed his "poor performance" at Kamala Harris' rally was shady. And to top it all off, Springsteen's onstage antics with the Obamas were the ultimate middle finger to Trump.