Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong recently protested in an offensive way against former President Donald Trump.
Billie Joe Armstrong draws criticism
On Monday, pop punk band Green Day performed at Nationals Park in Washington DC alongside The Smashing Pumpkins. The band has met an attack of boycott calls as their lead singer defiantly held up a Trump mask and changed the lyrics to a popular song just weeks after the former president was shot at. The band also tried to register voters at the show, with the band frequently backing Democrats like Kamala Harris.
At a @GreenDay concert in Washington DC. They are registering people to vote. I fucking love it. #SaviorsTour pic.twitter.com/GOvDM59mbo
— Dakota Willink (@DakotaWillink) July 29, 2024
In video clip on X, Billie Joe Armstrong stirred controversy by deeming Donald Trump an “idiot” in a bold onstage stunt at a concert Monday. The mask represents a dead or defeated Trump while performing in DC barely a couple of weeks after Donald Trump was nearly assassinated. Armstrong also changed the American Idiot lyric to “I’m not a part of a MAGA agenda”
🔥🚨BREAKING: Billy Joe Armstrong, lead singer for Green Day, protested in a disgusting way by holding a Donald Trump mask which to many viewers claim represents a dead or defeated Trump while performing in DC barely 2 weeks after his Donald Trump was nearly assassinated.… pic.twitter.com/K0HMM8r3mC
— Dom Lucre | Breaker of Narratives (@dom_lucre) July 30, 2024
How innovative—@GreenDay holds a Trump mask up on stage pic.twitter.com/Pup4ywufl2
— Matthew Foldi (@MatthewFoldi) July 30, 2024
The band has a long history of speaking out against the former president, using this changed lyric in multiple shows since 2016. It has come to light that during a televised performance on this year’s Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, the band used the lyrics replacing “Redneck” with “MAGA.”
Their first major performance to feature these lyrics happened at the iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas in 2019. During the 2016 American Music Awards, the band also chanted “No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA” during their performance of the song, Bang Bang.
However, this most recent stunt on stage came only a few weeks after the assassination attempt of the former president at a rally in Pennsylvania – leading to calls to boycott the band.
On July 13, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, opened fire and attempted to assassinate former president Donald Trump as he spoke at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Crooks was on a rooftop about 430 feet away. Fortunately, the bullet only grazed Trump’s ear in a barrage of gunfire that killed one rally-goer and injured two others.
Within 26 seconds of the first shot, a Secret Service counter-sniper stationed on another nearby roof returned fire and immediately killed Crooks, according to law enforcement officials. Police believe that Crooks, who was a registered Republican and reportedly a former Trump supporter, physically went to the site of the rally the day before and early that morning.
