President Donald Trump is demanding a “main investigation” into celebrities like Bruce Springsteen, Beyoncé, Oprah Winfrey and Bono, purporting that they had been illegally paid to endorse former Vice President Kamala Harris throughout her 2024 presidential marketing campaign.
In a late-night submit on TruthSocial, Trump presumed that these main entertainers had been compensated to endorse Harris personally and that their funds had been cloaked as leisure charges for performances at her marketing campaign occasions. He posted no proof to help these allegations.
“HOW MUCH DID KAMALA HARRIS PAY BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN FOR HIS POOR PERFORMANCE DURING HER CAMPAIGN FOR PRESIDENT? WHY DID HE ACCEPT THAT MONEY IF HE IS SUCH A FAN OF HERS? ISN’T THAT A MAJOR AND ILLEGAL CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION? WHAT ABOUT BEYONCÉ? …AND HOW MUCH WENT TO OPRAH, AND BONO???” Trump wrote.
“I’m going to name for a serious investigation into this matter. Candidates aren’t allowed to pay for ENDORSEMENTS, which is what Kamala did, underneath the guise of paying for leisure. As well as, this was a really costly and determined effort to artificially construct up her sparse crowds. IT’S NOT LEGAL! For these unpatriotic ‘entertainers,’ this was only a CORRUPT & UNLAWFUL approach to capitalize on a damaged system. Thanks to your consideration to this matter!!!”
Simply hours after that submit, Trump singled out Beyoncé, citing “information reviews” that alleged she was paid $11 million to stroll onto a stage and “shortly endorse” Kamala.
“In keeping with information reviews, Beyoncé was paid $11,000,000 to stroll onto a stage, shortly ENDORSE KAMALA, and stroll off to loud booing for by no means having carried out, NOT EVEN ONE SONG! Bear in mind, the Democrats and Kamala illegally paid her hundreds of thousands of {Dollars} for doing nothing apart from giving Kamala a full throated ENDORSEMENT. THIS IS AN ILLEGAL ELECTION SCAM AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL! IT IS AN ILLEGAL CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION! BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, OPRAH, BONO AND, PERHAPS, MANY OTHERS, HAVE A LOT OF EXPLAINING TO DO!!!” Trump’s submit learn.
Beyoncé hardly ever responds on to on-line criticism or controversy, sustaining a distance that retains her above most public feuds. This lack of engagement leaves her followers to take up the mantle of protection, typically with even larger depth.
Beyoncé’s fanbase, often called the Beyhive, is famously passionate and protecting. Traditionally, they’ve mobilized en masse to defend her towards perceived slights, typically flooding critics’ social media with bee emojis and harsh responses.
“The BeyHive will not be going to be completely happy!!!! That’s a combat I feel Trump received’t win!,” one particular person mentioned on X.
Beyoncé’s mom, Tina Knowles, denounced these allegations months in the past, stating her daughter “didn’t obtain a penny for talking at a Presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris’s Rally in Houston. The truth is, she really paid for her personal flights for her and her staff, and complete Glam.”
Marketing campaign finance data present that Harris’ marketing campaign paid Beyoncé’s manufacturing firm, Parkwood Manufacturing Media LLC, $165,000 a month after the Houston occasion.
Oprah Winfrey and her staff have additionally beforehand acknowledged that Winfrey acquired “no private charges,” after Harris’s marketing campaign paid her manufacturing firm, Harpo Productions, $1 million final October to cowl the prices for a city corridor Winfrey’s manufacturing firm helped put collectively in Michigan.
“The marketing campaign paid for the manufacturing prices of ‘Unite for America,’ a livestreaming occasion that passed off Sept. 19 exterior Detroit, Mich.,” a spokesperson for Harpo mentioned in an announcement to Selection. “Oprah Winfrey was at no level in the course of the marketing campaign paid a private price, nor did she obtain a price from Harpo.”
Trump’s accusations come shortly after intense criticism from Springsteen at a live performance on the European leg of his “Land, Hope, Desires Tour.” Springsteen advised viewers members in Manchester, England, that America “is at present within the palms of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration.”
The president went after Springsteen a day later, calling him a “pushy, obnoxious JERK,” and a “dried out ‘prune’ of a rocker.”
“I see that Extremely Overrated Bruce Springsteen goes to a International Nation to talk badly in regards to the President of america. By no means favored him, by no means favored his music, or his Radical Left Politics and, importantly, he’s not a gifted man — Only a pushy, obnoxious JERK, who fervently supported Crooked Joe Biden, a mentally incompetent FOOL, and our WORST EVER President, who got here near destroying our Nation. This dried out ’prune’ of a rocker (his pores and skin is all atrophied!) should KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT till he will get again into the Nation, that’s simply ‘commonplace fare.’ Then we’ll all see the way it goes for him!”
However a defiant Springsteen didn’t let up on his backlash. In keeping with the Los Angeles Occasions, he solely doubled down on the denunciation at a second live performance in Manchester on Could 17.
“In my residence, they’re persecuting folks for his or her proper to free speech and voicing their dissent. That’s occurring now,” Springsteen mentioned. “In America, the richest males are taking satisfaction in abandoning the world’s poorest youngsters to illness and demise. That’s occurring now. In my nation, they’re taking sadistic pleasure within the ache they inflict on loyal American staff.”
After the 2024 election, the Harris marketing campaign denied paying private charges to artists or performers. Marketing campaign advisors advised Deadline that marketing campaign finance legal guidelines required them to pay for some efficiency prices associated to journey or manufacturing, however they pressured that the marketing campaign had adopted all marketing campaign finance legal guidelines “religiously.”
“We don’t pay. We now have by no means paid any artist and performer. We now have by no means paid a price to that particular person,” Adrienne Elrod, senior adviser and senior spokesperson for the Harris marketing campaign, acknowledged. “There are legal guidelines that should be adopted that now we have adopted religiously on this marketing campaign.”
