Donald Trump said on Thursday that he will hold a political rally in Washington on June 24, replacing a concert that had already lost several performers amid political tensions ahead of the United States’ 250th anniversary celebrations. Writing on Truth Social, Trump said the event would be “the greatest rally of all time” and attacked the idea of paying high-fee singers he described as “untalented,” saying they had been told to stay home.
The concert had been thrown into doubt after at least five originally scheduled artists withdrew last week. Bret Michaels, the lead singer of Poison, said the celebration had shifted from a patriotic event into something far more divisive than he had agreed to join. Country singer Martina McBride also declined, saying she had been offered a nonpartisan performance slot that later proved misleading. Michaels, an 1980s rock star, and the Commodores were among the acts that pulled out.
Trump had already floated the idea of turning the concert into a rally on Saturday and asked his team to assess whether it could be done. He confirmed the change on Thursday, saying he wanted only supporters, a few speakers, and “the greatest music ever played.” He also said conservative singer Lee Greenwood would attend. Greenwood’s song “God Bless the USA” has long been a staple at Trump events.
The president has been trying to put his own stamp on the summer marking 250 years since the country’s founding. In addition to the planned June 24 rally, he has scheduled mixed martial arts fights on the White House lawn for June 14, which is also his 80th birthday.
The entertainment lineup for the anniversary celebrations has drawn mockery online, especially because it featured artists whose biggest hits came decades ago, including Vanilla Ice, C+C Music Factory, and Milli Vanilli, whose surviving member dates back to the group’s late-1980s fame. Critics on social media ridiculed the choice of performers, arguing that the program did not match the scale or significance of the national milestone.
The episode highlights how Trump is turning the 250th anniversary commemorations into a highly political spectacle, blending campaign-style events, conservative symbolism, and his own branding efforts around major public celebrations.
