Bono backs Bruce Springsteen in Trump battle: 'There’s only one Boss in America'

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After praising Canada for electing Mark Carney as prime minister, Bono has sounded off on the contentious battle between U.S. President Donald Trump and rock star Bruce Springsteen.

During a recent appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! this week, the U2 frontman was asked who he’s backing as the president and musician engage in an ongoing war-of-words. Bono laughed after being posed the question, responding: “There’s only one Boss in America,” namechecking Springsteen’s nickname.

Kimmel then asked Bono if he had seen Trump’s recent Truth Social post in which he accused the singer of being paid — along with Springsteen, Beyonce and Oprah Winfrey — to endorse Kamala Harris during last year’s presidential election.

“I don’t want to cut in on your action, because I know the president at 1 a.m., or 1:30, or whatever, is usually thinking about you,” Bono replied, referencing Kimmel’s own feud with Trump.

But he continued, denying that U2 received money to pitch Harris to American voters.

“Two points I’ll make. One, to be the company of Bruce Springsteen, Beyonce, and Oprah — I’ll play tambourine in that band,” he joked. “And two, U2 and I have never (been) paid or played a show to support any candidate from any party. It has never happened.”

Hitting out at Trump’s social media platform, calling Truth Social “pretty antisocial” and remarking that “it’s not very true a lot of the time,” Bono said that “there will be trouble” following Trump’s cuts to foreign aid.

“I co-founded the One Campaign, which is, by design, bipartisan,” he said, acknowledging his anti-poverty organization.

“We’ve got a lot of very religious Catholics, Evangelicals, Conservatives who are very, very, very angry with the person that they voted into office having demolished instruments of mercy and compassion like USAID (United States Agency for International Development) or PEPFAR (United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), which can save 26 million lives of people who have AIDS around the world,” Bono said. “That’s the America that we love. That’s the America that we all want to be part of. And they are not happy, and there will be trouble.”

Trump and Springsteen’s fight began after the Born in the U.S.A. rocker lashed out at the president on the opening night of the European leg of his Land of Hope and Dreams Tour.

“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,” he told the crowd in Manchester, England.

Springsteen also said that most of Trump’s colleagues have failed to shield Americans “from the abuses of an unfit president and a rogue government.”

In response, Trump called the 20-time Grammy winner a “dried-out ‘prune’” and declared that he “never liked him, never liked his music, or his Radical Left Politics.” 

He later returned to Truth Social and shared a doctored video of himself hitting a golf ball alongside a clip of the singer taking a tumble onstage after he’s hit with an animated projectile.

The ongoing conflict has drawn other rockers out of the woodwork, including Neil Young, who took to his website earlier this month to warn Trump he’s “not scared” of the president.

“Bruce and thousands of musicians think you are ruining America. You worry about that instead of the dyin’ kids in Gaza. That’s your problem,” he wrote. “STOP THINKING ABOUT WHAT ROCKERS ARE SAYING. Think about saving America from the mess you made.”

mdaniell@postmedia.com

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