Trump's 'Freedom 250' event timeline from artists DROPPING OUT to SMALL CROWDS — COMPILATION

[0:00] We have the right guaranteed by the Constitution to criticize and satirize our leaders. [0:06] This is a right that many of us take for granted. [0:09] It's one that I took for granted for the first 57 years of my life until September of last year. [0:15] We will not stand by when comedy and journalism and dissent are censored and regulated and criminalized. [0:23] Thank you to Donald Trump, our commander and thief, Eberscam Lincoln, Orange Julius Caesar, Greedy McGolfy, Dopey McGropy, and Pumpkin McPorn Humper. [0:37] Thank you for inspiring us to fight for our freedom of speech. [0:42] Hi again, everybody. It's now 5 o'clock in New York. [0:47] We didn't even get to him calling Donald Trump blob the builder and the hungry, hungry hypocrite. [0:52] Jimmy Kimmel accepted a Peabody award over the weekend on the power of using humor to call out Donald Trump's autocratic impulses [1:00] and tell the truth about what's happening in our country right now from his very powerful perch. [1:05] And while Donald Trump has never, ever been accused of making anyone's job easier, [1:10] except maybe that of the guy that puts gold leaf on everything in the Oval Office, [1:15] when it comes to using satire to speak truth to power, [1:19] sometimes Trump does the job for all of us. [1:22] Over the weekend, after artist after artist dropped out of his Freedom 250 concert series, [1:27] including Celebrity Apprentice winner Bret Michaels, [1:30] Donald Trump took to his favorite social media platform to declare this, quote, [1:36] I understand artists are getting the yips having to do with their performance on Wednesday. [1:42] So I am thinking about bringing the all caps number one attraction anywhere in the world. [1:49] The man who gets much larger audiences than Elvis in his prime. [1:55] He does so without a guitar. [1:58] The man who loves our country more than anyone else. [2:01] And the man who some say is the greatest president in history, [2:07] switching to all caps, the GOAT, staying in all caps, Donald J. Trump, [2:12] to take the place of these highly paid capitalized third-rate artists and give a major speech. [2:20] I only want to be surrounded by happy people, smart people, [2:25] a lot more odd capitalizations here, successful people, [2:29] and people that know how to win. [2:32] So by copy of this truth, I am ordering my representatives to look at the feasibility of doing [2:40] and back to all caps, America is back rally on Wednesday, Washington, D.C., [2:47] same place, same location, only great patriots invited. [2:51] It will be a wild and beautiful celebration of America. [2:57] President Donald J. Trump will be wild. [3:02] Last time he said that, it was an invitation to come to the Capitol on January 6th. [3:08] But in that whole, you can't break up with me because I'm breaking up with you thing, [3:15] it was a little bit of desperation, right, to add insult to injury. [3:20] As Trump fails and flails to keep young MC from running for the hills, [3:26] Joan Baez has announced that she is the latest superstar to join the Power to the People festival, [3:32] curated by Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morella, who's been touring with Bruce Springsteen. [3:37] That event is star studded. [3:40] It's going to help raise funds for pro-democracy causes. [3:43] It's a festival that will feature Bruce Springsteen, Public Enemy, [3:46] the Foo Fighters, Dave Matthews, and many more legit superstars and icons. [3:52] And it's sold out. Don't tell. [3:58] And don't worry. [3:59] Trump still has the CNC Music Factory guy, I think. [4:03] Heilman will tell me if that's not the case anymore. [4:06] Donald Trump throwing an absolute hissy fit as one hit wonder after one hit wonder [4:12] flees his MAGA Jamboree is where we begin the hour. [4:15] Some of our favorite reporters and friends. [4:17] Huck News senior political columnist and national affairs analyst John Heilman is back with us. [4:23] Heilman, I felt like we had to update the story from where we were on Friday when you informed me [4:31] about some of the social media posts that I had missed. [4:34] This story got a lot worse for Donald Trump such that he posted this. [4:38] I now at least three times a week take a Trump post and ask to verify it to make sure it's real and not. [4:46] And it used to be like half of them were real and some of them were just, you know, floating around. [4:51] Now they're all real and they're all absolutely bat bleep crazy. [4:56] Right. Well, look, in that in that the post that you just read, Nicole, there was one shred of truth in it. [5:08] And that I think is very high ratio for most Trump social media posts. [5:13] He said that, you know, these the acts that were that were getting the yips. [5:19] Donald Trump understands the entirety of the world through the prism of golf. [5:22] The yips is basically a golf term. [5:25] He said they were all third rate entertainers. [5:27] I think that's kind of right. That's right. You know, the problem for him, of course, that the third rate entertainers are abandoning him. [5:37] And the second rate entertainers would never even consider coming. [5:40] And the first rate entertainers are all going to be at Meriwether Post Pavilion on October 3rd with my friend Tom Morello and our mutual hero, Bruce Springsteen. [5:49] I mean, how many I sort of want to pull the curtain back, though, and explain and I want to say that we are we've been joined in our conversation by the executive editor of Deadline.com, Dominic Patton, who I've turned to for all these conversations really for the last year and a half. [6:04] I have bemoaned and I've interviewed Joan Baez, you know, where where is culture? [6:11] And and she talked about she said to me this moment is scarier than it was when she was. [6:18] And I'll quote her. She said we were standing with with Martin and we when we were there. [6:23] She said we were together. You know, we had the culture. We had the music. We had each other. [6:28] And she said to me, I interviewed her about a year ago. This moment is worse. This moment feels scarier. [6:33] It feels like and I haven't talked to her recently, but it feels like that is starting to turn, that there is starting to be some safety in numbers in culture and art. [6:42] There's still a lot of people far too many, in my opinion, who are staying silent. [6:47] But I think this story is a window into something we don't often get to see. [6:53] And that is that no one prominent, respectable in art wants to stand with Donald Trump. [7:00] And many are happy now, maybe not happy, but are willing to stand against him. Dominic. [7:07] Well, I say, Nicole, for one thing, I find myself in the rare position of quoting vanilla ice of all people. [7:15] I heard a piece with vanilla ice recently where he talked about because he's one of the few artists who's staying in with the Trump, the Trump fest. [7:23] And he said, I'll play for Putin. I'll play in Iran. And I thought, well, yeah, that's kind of the problem. [7:30] You would. You would do exactly that. And that's where I think the dividing line is coming. [7:34] The people who will do that and the people who won't. You know, when you talk about Joan Baez, who's obviously, as we know, performing with Tom and with Bruce and everybody else, you know, these are people who back then, I think we had a much more monoculture, for lack of a better expression. [7:48] The fracture we see in culture now has for so long allowed people like the MAGA crowd to divide. That, I feel, is changing. I feel that there are a number of moves happening here. [7:57] I mean, look, man, when Bret Michaels drops out, you know, the national nightmare is over. So at that point, I think we know where the tide is turning here. [8:05] And also, let's be honest, Tom and Bruce have way cooler people showing up. I mean, John was right. [8:11] Trump referred to them as like, you know, third raiders. But pal, you picked them. That's your crowd. [8:16] The new feature story for the July issue of The Atlantic titled How to Tell the American Story. [8:22] Our next guest argues that finding a common history that is both unsparing and unifying has proven all but impossible in recent years. [8:32] But it shouldn't be. Joining us now, the author of that piece, deputy executive editor at The Atlantic, Yoni Applebaum. [8:40] And Yoni, in your piece, you write in part, quote, for more than two centuries, our creedal nationalism has been a source of strength, [8:48] binding together Americans of diverse faiths and backgrounds. But lately, we have discovered that it's also a vulnerability. [8:57] A nation defined by blood and soil built around a shared religion or ethnicity can survive divergent narratives. [9:06] To a country built on an idea, though, and bound together by a shared understanding of our history, [9:12] the inability to tell a common story might well prove fatal. [9:18] Unable to agree on how to tell our story, we have swiftly abandoned efforts to tell it at all. [9:24] The hours devoted to social studies in schools are shrinking. [9:30] And survey courses in American history are vanishing from college campuses. [9:35] The signature event of the nation's 250th birthday might prove to be not a keynote speech or a patriotic pageant, [9:46] but a no-holds-barred UFC fight on the south lawn of the White House. [9:52] It's our 250th birthday. And no one seems to know what we're celebrating. [10:00] Yoni, I'll add, but I'd love for you to tell us more about what you mean here. [10:04] That we're going to be watching people fight on stage with thousands of people screaming for it at the White House. [10:10] That's how we're celebrating this nation's 250th. [10:14] I personally find it to be sick and twisted, but maybe I'm alone here. Take it away. [10:22] Lots of Americans enjoy fighting and watching these bouts, and that's fine. [10:27] But it's a pretty odd way for a democracy to celebrate its 250th birthday. [10:31] We just had a clip of the president in this 250th anniversary year [10:36] trashing the processes of American democracy and insulting the constitutional liberties like freedom of the press. [10:43] We're in a pretty strange spot. You know, on the left, there's a real inclination to talk only about the things this country has done wrong, and it's not a short list. [10:52] And on the right, there's a new willingness to tear down placards and censor any mention of those same things, of the things America has done wrong. [11:01] And we're losing that common sense of purpose, the idea that there is a basic narrative that you can tell about this country. [11:08] And it's a pretty inspirational narrative. It's a narrative that says this was a country founded on a set of ideals to be a new sort of place in the world, and that those ideals are aspirational. [11:19] We've never entirely succeeded in living up to them. Maybe we never will, but they're still worth fighting for. [11:25] And I think that that was, as I reported this, what really came home to me was the extent to which most Americans have internalized that basic narrative about the country. [11:35] And most of their leaders and most of the folks who are writing about history and most of the politicians out there are no longer really bought into the way that most Americans are. [11:46] Yeah, Yelena, was there a way in this year with this president, in this particularly divided time, for that narrative to have been told in Washington? [11:55] I mean, are you saying that this is really just Trump, and that had another president been in this position on the 250th anniversary of the founding of the country, [12:05] they would have found a way to rise above some of the divisions that we know are out there in the country, but that another president could have done this differently? [12:12] Let's stipulate that Donald Trump makes everything about himself and therefore everything divisive. [12:17] But when Joe Biden was in the White House, his 250th commission also failed. [12:22] Rather than come up with central unifying events or any sort of a coherent narrative, they sort of had a choose-your-own-adventure 250th. [12:31] They had downloadable kits that local institutions could use to brand things they were doing anyway as affiliated with the 250th. [12:37] They encouraged Americans to record their own stories on the premise that each of us has our own story about the country. [12:43] Those are fine things to do, but there was a gaping void at the center there. [12:47] The Democrats were not able to tell a story about this country that Americans could buy into. [12:52] And then Donald Trump comes along, and he tells a story about the country that MAGA buys into. [12:57] But it's a story that I think is fundamentally at odds with how Americans have mostly understood themselves and their country to this point. [13:03] But Yoni, one of the things that this piece makes clear that you just articulated there is that America's defining future, if anything, is that it is an idea. [13:12] It is premised on ideas. [13:14] It is not premised on blood and soil, as you wrote. [13:18] And when John is talking about how the things that feel like we're missing, these guardrails, these norms, that too is part of the American idea. [13:28] And so how does that, if you're thinking about this as a political strategist, how does that get sold to a country that has been told, you're losing your country to people who don't actually have stakes in it? [13:43] How do you communicate the power of an idea in an age where abstraction is losing to fear and to blood and to soil? [13:52] You know, back in 1862, a woman named Julia Ward Howe wrote a poem and sent it to the Atlantic and said, would you guys publish this? [13:59] And we put it back on our cover this month, The Battle Hymn of the Republic. [14:03] And the message of that poem was, this is a country worth fighting for. [14:07] The ideas at the heart of this country are worth fighting for. [14:10] And she knew perfectly well in the middle of the Civil War that not every American agreed with her on that, that this was contentious. [14:17] But I think that what you're pointing to is that Americans really are hungry for the articulation of a set of values, a set of principles, of a set of ideals that they can buy into. [14:30] That the left has largely abandoned that project in favor of critique. [14:34] And it opens a void for the kind of divisive blood and soil nationalism that Donald Trump and those around him favor. [14:40] Because people do want something to believe in. [14:42] They want a country to call their own. [14:44] And to the extent that the mainstream story falls away, that we stop defining ourselves around an idea, [14:50] it opens a chance for people to come in and exploit the divisions within this country [14:54] and encourage people to think of it as a tribal society rather than a creedal one. [14:58] The new piece for the July issue of The Atlantic is available to read online now. [15:05] If you watched any of Trump's great American state fair tonight, I mean, I'm sorry for you, I guess. [15:11] But you might have thought you were just watching a Trump rally. [15:14] Well, the 16-day event bills itself as a free nonpartisan celebration of America's 250th birthday with no ulterior motives. [15:21] Nobody supposed to be benefiting aside from the American people. [15:24] That's clearly not the case. [15:26] I mean, just to put a fine point on it, tonight's festivities were produced at least in part by the production company behind Trump's rally at the Ellipse on January 6th. [15:35] A company that The New York Times reports has received millions of dollars worth of no-bid contracts since Trump retook office. [15:42] And it is just one of the now multiple companies The Times reports has received no-bid contracts from the Trump administration related to the country's 250th birthday. [15:52] Now, for anyone out there thinking, well, doesn't it make sense for the government to celebrate the country's 250th birthday? [15:58] Yeah, of course it does. The country should be celebrating. [16:01] That is why a decade ago Congress created a nonpartisan nonprofit called America 250 to help plan and produce a celebration. [16:08] But this isn't that group. [16:10] You see, the Trump administration decided to make their own group. [16:13] Instead of America 250, this group is confusingly called Freedom 250. [16:18] And it is Freedom 250 that just so happened to hire the firm from Trump's January 6th Ellipse rally. [16:24] It is Freedom 250 that decided the academic institution it should partner with for this celebration of American history was the unaccredited right-wing evangelical group. [16:33] It is Freedom 250 that is holding tonight's rally on the National Mall, headlined by Trump himself. [16:40] And all of these pro-Trump, pro-MAGA festivities are costing quite a lot of money. [16:45] Some of that money is coming from private donors. [16:47] As the New York Times reports, Freedom 250 got some of its fund by offering perks to private sponsors. [16:52] Of course they did. [16:53] For half a million bucks, sponsors could get their logo featured at Freedom 250 events. [16:58] For a million bucks, sponsors got access to Trump himself. [17:01] But of course a lot of these festivities are being paid for with your tax dollars. [17:06] The non-profit watchdog groups The Revolving Door Project and Public Citizen have tracked nearly $103 million worth of public contracts and grants. [17:15] From the Trump administration to what the groups describe as, quote, [17:18] a network of politicized entities under the control of Trump administration officials and political allies. [17:25] There we go. [17:26] All under the guise of America's 250th birthday. [17:30] Joining me now is Democratic Senator from Georgia, John Ossoff. [17:34] Good to see you. [17:35] Great to be back. [17:36] Thanks for having me. [17:37] Of course. [17:38] So tonight was technically the kickoff of America 250. [17:41] And I think a lot of people feel two realities right now. [17:44] One, pride in being an American, pride in being in this great country. [17:48] And the other reality is watching the President of the United States essentially make money from this celebration, make it about himself, help benefit people who owe him favors. [18:00] How do you square, not square, but how do you think about these two realities? [18:04] Well, I think it's a call to action for patriotic Americans to recognize that at the 250th anniversary of our country's founding in rejection of kingdom and monarchy, we have these events being hijacked by the narcissism of the president who styles himself most like a king. [18:23] And it wouldn't be a Trump event without no bid contracts and the sale of access corruption is par for the course at this point. [18:31] I think the Trump show has jumped the shark. [18:33] I don't think many people are tuning in because he's lost it. [18:37] But more importantly, what we're seeing is how destabilized he is by his global humiliation in the Middle East, which he cannot deny or lie away. [18:50] His approval rating sits at 34 percent while Americans pay more than ever for groceries and health care and rent. [18:57] And he's out here building a monument to himself and adorning his office in gold trim while because of his actions, cancer patients face the loss of their health insurance. [19:07] He has cemented his place in history in disgrace. [19:12] And now our job as patriotic Americans inspired by the legacy of our founding is to marshal all of our passion and resources and energy to restoring checks and balances this fall because we won't get another chance at this. [19:26] And this race in Georgia will be decisive. [19:29] I am the only incumbent Democratic senator running free election in a state that Donald Trump won. [19:34] They will spend hundreds of millions of dollars to try to unseat me. [19:38] And I'm asking folks to visit electjohn.com to support my effort. [19:41] One of the things you've worked very hard on is this housing bill that I started the show talking about. [19:48] And this morning, this all happened in the same day. [19:50] Sometimes you can't make it up in Washington. [19:52] Trump just decided not to sign this bill. [19:54] And instead, he demanded that your Republican colleagues move forward in essentially pushing a voter suppression bill forward. [20:03] I have my own thoughts. [20:04] I mentioned some of them. [20:05] What do you think he pulled this all today? [20:07] Let's be very clear about what the president is saying to the American people. [20:12] The president is saying that he will not sign a bill whose purpose is to make housing affordable unless his allies in Congress pass a voter suppression bill to rig the election. [20:25] He is saying, I won't even sign a bill that will give economic relief to Americans unless the rules of this election are changed so that he, Donald Trump, cannot be held accountable for all of his misdeeds. [20:39] Because that's what he really fears most of all, is that when there is a change in the balance of power and when we restore checks and balances, he knows that there will be subpoenas flying, that officials from his administration will be testifying under oath about the full range of misconduct and corruption that we already know has been happening since the moment he was sworn in. [21:01] He also today had a lunch with the Republican caucus. [21:06] You mentioned a number of the things, a number of them are pissed off at him about, including him trying to jam an $88 billion ask for money for the Iran war down their throats, pushing for this voter suppression bill, which there are not the votes for. [21:20] He hasn't endorsed some sitting members of the Senate. [21:23] I just played a little bit of Yolo John Cornyn, as I like to call him. [21:26] What's going on with that? [21:28] And do you think there are more opportunities to work with Republicans on some of the things that might be priorities to you and some of your colleagues? [21:35] Look, I've got good working relationships with a lot of Republican colleagues. [21:38] That's how I've gotten so much done for Georgia, from passing landmark prison reform legislation to legislation that forces big tech companies to report online predators. [21:48] And I know because I talked to him that many of them are furious, that many of them feel that the president has lost control and lost the plot. [21:56] And yet we cannot hold out hope for a sudden outbreak of courage and integrity on the part of this president's allies in Congress, [22:06] because he's already blown through so many red lines and they stand with him because they're afraid of him. [22:13] It is only by winning decisively this fall and demonstrating to his allies that they put their seats and their political careers at risk by continuing to do his bidding that we will change their behavior. [22:26] America is turning 250. [22:28] But if you were expecting a rousing speech to celebrate this country and unify us behind a common history and a common future, you're not going to get it. [22:39] You're not going to get it from this president, at least. [22:41] Here is how he kicked off the first of 16 days of celebration. [22:46] We signed a historic agreement to end the conflict with Iran, fully open the Strait of Hormuz and accomplish what no president has ever been able to accomplish before. [23:00] In my first term, I rebuilt our military and created the greatest economy in the history of the world. [23:05] We had the greatest economy in history. [23:07] And now we are going to blow that away. [23:09] We're doing better, much better than even the first term. [23:12] Under the Trump administration, America is once again a nation of self-respect, dignity and pride. [23:19] We're building the most beautiful ballroom anywhere in the world, right at the White House. [23:24] Right at the White House. [23:25] You go to TrumpRx.gov and you get what you're looking for at prices so much lower that a lot of people don't even believe it's happening. [23:35] On July 4th, we will have the greatest show of all on the National Mall. [23:39] Your favorite president will be speaking. [23:42] So please show up. [23:44] So less of a celebration of all of us, more of a declaration of his own greatness, like a campaign rally. [23:53] It should not have to be this way. [23:56] Donald Trump tried to pull an only I can fix it out of his hat to save himself from humiliation after multiple, multiple musical artists pulled out of performing in his great American state fair. [24:12] And he did that by inserting himself as the headliner for the kickoff event last night. [24:17] It didn't seem to go very well. [24:19] The celebrations are off to a very rocky start with video from the Bulwark showing what appears to be a steady stream of people leaving the event in the middle of Trump's speech. [24:29] You can hear him talking. [24:30] You can hear him talking. [24:31] Listen. [24:32] We are delivering the largest reduction in drug price history with price differences. [24:38] I guess they felt like they'd heard that riff before. [24:42] Not a great look, though, for a guy who worries so much about crowd size. [24:47] The Bulwark's Jared Poland also shared this snap online of an attendee lying down on the grass writing that Trump's speech was literally putting people to sleep. [24:57] Let's bring in the aforementioned rapid response senior editor at the Bulwark Jared Poland. [25:02] So how was it? [25:05] The speech was definitely a short one by Trump standards. [25:10] I've watched hundreds of Trump speeches since I've started working for the Bulwark. [25:15] And his speech last night came in just a little under 30 minutes. [25:18] And a lot of the crowd there, I would say, were definitely not your typical sycophantic, super, super Trump crazy supporter. [25:26] There were definitely some of those there towards the front, but a lot of the people hanging out towards the back that I talked to, this had been their first Trump rally. [25:33] And there were some people towards the front that I had talked to that actually it was his 116th Trump rally. [25:40] And so those people, I imagine, stayed, but a lot of people got their picture of Trump and headed for the gates. [25:47] Trump is obsessed with late night, so I will show you how late night covered this. [25:53] This is Jimmy Fallon. [25:54] Well, tonight, President Trump headlined a rally to celebrate America's 250th after all the musical artists dropped out of his concert. [26:04] It's the first event where BYOB means bring your own band and the old one. [26:10] Tonight included a military flyover, Lee Greenwood singing God Bless the USA, and a speech by Trump. [26:17] Even Trump's biggest fans were like, is this a repeat? [26:20] Because I feel like I've seen this for him. [26:22] It's remarkable because Jimmy Fallon of all of the men and women in late night and on that stage pokes fun at Trump the least. [26:34] But this is where it hurts the most if you're Donald Trump. [26:37] A repeat, a rehash, not so A-list. [26:40] What was it that they couldn't, last block we're talking about how all powerful Trump is, [26:46] that he's literally got media organizations, law firms, and all the federal government working for him, [26:51] but he couldn't rub sticks together and get anyone better than himself? [26:56] So a lot of the people that I talked to at the rally, they were there not because of Trump, [27:01] but because they wanted to be there to see the festivities. [27:04] There were definitely some Trump supporters there. [27:07] But I think a lot of the people backed out because Trump really has made this entire America 250 celebration about him. [27:15] And a lot of people that were there definitely were looking for something to celebrate America [27:22] and were happy to see the president speak. [27:24] But I think they were more so there for the flyovers and the Marine Corps band that was playing before. [27:29] So I think the attendance would have probably lasted a little bit longer into the night had the original acts stayed on board. [27:35] I want to show you Trump trying to do some crowd building for his next event featuring himself. [27:45] This is Trump seeming to beg the crowd to come to his 4th of July speech. [27:49] Then on July 4th, we will have the greatest show of all on the National Mall. [27:56] Your favorite president will be speaking. [27:58] So please show up because if we have two empty seats, you know what's going to happen? [28:05] The fake news is going to say he didn't fill out the arena. [28:08] I mean, he doth protest us so much. [28:12] The idea that we're the problem. [28:15] He seems to be the problem when it comes to empty seats. [28:18] Clearly showing the vulnerability that this exposes, the lack of attendance, the lack of enthusiasm, [28:25] and people walking out looking for nonpolitical, I guess most generous description, acts. [28:31] Yeah, I think this celebration would have been a lot better had Trump not made himself the center of it. [28:41] But unfortunately, with Donald Trump, he's incapable of doing that. [28:45] I mean, he wants to be at the center of every bit of this America 250 celebration. [28:50] And last night, I think you saw how the crowd feels about that. [28:54] As soon as he came on, the crowd started to thin out. [28:57] And I think come the 4th of July, because the fireworks are at the end, you might not see that as much. [29:02] But last night, there was nothing to look forward to after Trump. [29:05] So they got their pictures and they head for the gates. [29:07] So that's back now. [29:08] Did they really have this comment, since what happened in Upper West Jive room, [29:09] which was basicallyantes found found out on him on the front seat bar. [29:10] These communities blow through up cannot walk through many nations. [29:12] But at the end it is only for terra выше, we have to be everywhere. [29:14] But at the end it is not built to make these streets and it is also a engaging entrepreneur. [29:15] , [29:16] And for the end, we're all good at supporting them. [29:17] We are going to be particularly inclusive in the upper outer and bottom of the next couple. [29:18] So that's kind of a more open house to find the opposite. [29:19] Then we're going to go to the 9th of July. [29:20] Let's be all over. [29:22] That's kind of thing. [29:23] It is so large. [29:24] Now we're going to take advantage two예� Bethany is.