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Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris will square off on Election Day next week and the race continues to be deadlocked according to national polling numbers. On X, Donald Trump was greeted by a “Dump Trump” trending topic on X after appearing to stumble towards a garbage truck for a media event in Wisconsin.
Donald Trump, 78, was in Green Bay, Wisc. for a campaign event in what was a return jab toward President Joe Biden, who appeared to refer to Trump supporters as “garbage” after a comedian made a crude joke about Puerto Rico and referred to the island as such.
In a clip posted by Matt McDermott on X, formerly Twitter, Trump is seen walking towards a white garbage truck adorned with flags and his name on the side. As he approaches the door, Trump appears to mistime grabbing the handle and looks to be gingerly walking up into the passenger side.
While seated in the garbage truck, Trump took questions from the media but continued to dodge questions regarding comedian Tony Hinchcliffe and claimed that he didn’t know him while passing the scheduling of Hinchcliffe onto his staff.
Conservative commentators have commended Trump for the media event, using it as fuel to egg on voters who may have been on the fence. Although President Biden clarified his comments, some observers felt that the mention of the MSG rally by Biden was a gaffe that Vice President Harris could ill afford. Harris and other Democrats have distanced themselves from Biden’s comments, but it hasn’t stopped the flurry of reactions that ensued.
Under the “Dump Trump” trending topic, users on X are noting that Donald Trump looks physically unable to handle the rigors of the campaign trail. Other replies also highlight former Trump allies aiming at him.
On X, we’ve gathered some replies and they’re listed out below.
Trump seems to be really struggling physically. pic.twitter.com/yRk7ZB2kDx
— Matt McDermott (@mattmfm) October 30, 2024
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
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Photo: Getty
It’s “TGIF” indeed for Vice President Kamala Harris‘ rally and concert set for this Friday (Nov. 1). The Harris-Walz campaign announced on Thursday (Oct. 31) that rappers Cardi B and GloRilla will be on hand to support the Democratic ticket during the When We Vote We Win event in Milwaukee, Wisc. The Grammy-winning rapper is […]
When Gracie Abrams took the stage at a Kamala Harris rally at Alliant Energy Center in Madison, Wisconsin, on Wednesday night (Oct. 30), the 25-year-old singer/songwriter urged young voters to support the Harris/Walz campaign so there’s still a democracy left to “fix it when it is our turn.”
“I know everybody who has been onstage tonight and will be onstage tonight wouldn’t be anywhere else for anyone else except … for the next president of the United States: the amazing, compassionate and brilliant Kamala Harris,” Abrams said. “For many of us here onstage and in this crowd tonight, this is either the first or second time that we’ve had the privilege of voting in a presidential election. As we know, we’ve inherited a world that is struggling and it’s easy to feel disconnected and disillusioned. Between the advent of social media in our childhoods and COVID and relentlessly targeted disinformation, we’ve been through some things. It’s easy to be discouraged, but we know better. We know that unless we vote and keep our democracy intact, there is nothing we will be able to do to fix it when it is our turn.”
Abrams wrapped her speech by declaring of Harris: “She is the right leader at a very tricky time and we could not be luckier.”
.@gracieabrams: It’s easy to be discouraged, but we know better. We know that unless we vote for Kamala Harris and keep our democracy intact, there is nothing we will be able to do to fix it when it is our turn💙 pic.twitter.com/9YH77IhX1D— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) October 31, 2024
In addition to her speech, Abrams and her band — who are currently opening up for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour on its final North American leg — also performed “I Love You, I’m Sorry” (which just peaked in the top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100 this month) and “Free Now”; both are from her most recent album, The Secret of Us, which debuted at No. 1 on the Top Album Sales chart over the summer.
Mumford & Sons also performed at the rally, playing “Little Lion Man,” “Awake My Soul” and “I Will Wait” — their highest-charting hit, peaking at No. 12 on the Hot 100 in 2013. In 2021, the group’s guitarist-banjo player Winston Marshall left the band after a controversial social media post calling right-wing provocateur Andy Ngo a “brave man” for his book Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy.
Remi Wolf hit the stage too, performing “Cinderella” and saying in a speech that America should feel like “a place where we feel safe, accepted and free. That is why I’m here today to support our future president, Kamala Harris, in her efforts to create this safe space for us again. She understands that the right to make decisions about our own bodies is fundamental. She’s committed to tackling big issues like climate change and, like me, she’s a girl from the Bay Area who loves to laugh and have fun.”
Also at the music-heavy rally, Aaron Dessner and Matt Berninger from The National dedicated their song “I Need a Girl” to Harris.
It looks like The Queen of Soul is a Kamala Harris supporter. In a new campaign ad, the Democratic presidential candidate talks about the “full-on attack on hard-fought freedoms,” as Aretha Franklin’s 1968 classic “Think” plays in the background. As Harris reminds voters of freedoms achieved over the decades over historic footage, including the right to vote for Black Americans and women, as well as a woman’s right to “make decisions about her own body,” the song’s “Freedom” refrain plays.
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Billboard has learned that Franklin’s estate reached out to the Harris campaign, making her music available, and specifically suggested “Think” as a good option. The campaign fully embraced the idea for the get-out-the-vote ad, which is running on YouTube and other online outlets, as well as connected TV/premium streaming services. Billboard will update as soon as it learns more.
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Franklin has supported Democrats for decades, including performing the national anthem at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. She sang a majestic version of “My Country, Tis of Thee” at Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration in 2009. She also sang at a farewell event for Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, in 2015.
When Franklin died in 2018, Obama released a statement that read in part, “Aretha’s work reflected the very best of our American story – in all of its hope and heart, its boldness and its unmistakable beauty.”
While the Harris ad uses “Think,” which Franklin and her ex-husband, Ted White, co-wrote, her signature song, “Respect,” also played a vital role in the civil rights movement in the ‘60s. In her autobiography she wrote of the song that it spoke to “the need of the average man and woman in the street, the businessman, the mother, the fireman, the teacher — everyone wanted respect…It was also one of the battle cries of the civil rights movement. The song took on monumental significance.”
Stevie Nicks has been using her platform to encourage political activism in her fans, but she explained that she wasn’t always an active voter.
In a new interview with MSNBC, the 76-year-old “Edge of Seventeen” icon opened up about not voting util six years ago. “I never voted until I was 70, but I regret that. I’ve told everybody that onstage for the last two years,” she said. “I regret that and I don’t have very many regrets. There’s so many reasons. You can say, ‘Oh, I didn’t have time. I was this and that.’ In the long run, you didn’t have an hour? You didn’t have an hour of your time that you could have gone and voted.”
She also discussed the inspiration behind her recently released track, “The Lighthouse,” a song inspired by the fight for abortion access following the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022. “We have to find a way to bring back Roe vs. Wade,” she explained, noting that musicians should speak out more about causes in their music. “In the end of the 50s and 60s and into the 70s, everyone was writing protest songs. Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Stephen Stills — it was lots and lots and lots. I would say to all my musical poets that write songs to write some songs about what’s happening like I did.”
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Nicks added, “Whoever wins, the lighthouse needs to keep shining its light and keep those ships from crashing into the rocks. That’s my idea of the lighthouse being a protector, protecting all those boats and ships that are coming in.”
Watch the full interview here.
In September, the Fleetwood Mac singer followed in Taylor Swift’s footsteps to endorse Kamala Harris for the presidential election. “As my friend @taylorswift so eloquently stated, now is the time to research and choose the candidate that speaks to you and your beliefs,” Nicks wrote on Instagram, sharing a photo of herself with her tiny canine.
“Only 54 days left until the election,” she continued. “Make sure you are registered to vote! Your vote in this election may be one of the most important things you ever do.”
Nicky Jam is no longer supporting Donald Trump for president, the reggaetón hitmaker announced on Wednesday (Oct. 30) in a video he uploaded to his Instagram page. The message comes a month after the Massachusetts-born singer-songwriter had endorsed the Republican candidate and even spoke at one of his rallies in Las Vegas back in September. […]
When Billboard started publishing in 1894, Grover Cleveland was president of the United States of America — all 44 of them. Parsing politics has never been this publication’s primary purpose, but over the decades since, every POTUS has popped up in our pages. So, ahead of Election Day (Nov. 5), Billboard tips its reporter’s hat to the commanders in chief whose policies and cultural cachet helped shape the music business.
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No. 1 With a ‘Bullet’
The Sept. 21, 1901, issue of Billboard covered “an almost prophetic incident” that occurred at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, N.Y., the day an assassin shot President William McKinley at the Temple of Music (Sept. 6). (He died from the injury a week later.) “Only a moment or two before the shot rang out,” a friend of McKinley’s told Billboard, the “orchestra had played a German piece of music entitled ‘The Cursed Bullet.’ ”
Not ‘Ike’ Us
“Election year brought tangible results in revenue to Madison Square Garden,” reported the Feb. 16, 1952, Billboard, “as an Eisenhower-for-President rally, backed by entertainment names, drew 15,000.” Luminaries included songwriting great Irving Berlin, whose 1950 Broadway tune “They Like Ike” became the campaign slogan “I Like Ike.” The same issue included a story about an “overzealous Eisenhower supporter” in Dallas who interrupted a concert by “RCA Victor songbird” Mindy Carson and “insisted on pinning an ‘I Like Ike’ button on her shoulder.
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Family Values
The Nov. 24, 1962, Billboard buzzed about John F. Kennedy impersonator Vaughn Meader’s album The First Family, calling it a “comedy smash” that “electrified the industry.” The title’s success helped warm the market chill that followed the Cuban missile crisis, one of the defining moments of Kennedy’s presidency. The Dec. 8, 1962, issue said the album boosted “a gradually improving sales situation following the partial solution of the Cuban scare.” “I had someone come in for a copy of The First Family the other day and they left the store with $32 worth of records,” a Miami retailer explained. “That’s what one of these smashes can do.”
Get Carter
Soon after the 1976 election, the Nov. 13 issue described Jimmy Carter as “a friend in the White House who’s sympathetic… to the music industry.” The Allman Brothers Band had played a fundraising role in his primary campaign, and the music business “got a lot of early support for him both through contributions and performances when cash was critical,” Capricorn Records president Phil Walden said. It wasn’t just Southern rock that carried Carter: The Sept. 18, 1976, issue reported on “a mobile disco operation in Atlanta” that was “discoing around the country” to raise support for Carter.
Bills, Bills, Bills
The Nov. 14, 1992, Billboard covered a CMJ Music Marathon panel in New York titled “Are We Really Voting Tipper Gore Into the White House?” — a then-controversial idea, considering she had taken a stand against music with explicit lyrics marketed to children. Panelists had “an ‘anti-Tipper-but-voting-for-Clinton-anyway’ theme.’ ” More than two decades later, Bill Clinton posed with Jon Bon Jovi for the cover of the Nov. 5, 2016, issue, to spotlight their philanthropy. “This is Bon Jovi’s Be Kind to a Senior Night,” the former president joked during the photo shoot.
This article appears in the Oct. 26, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Election Day is less than a week away, and viral comedian Randy Rainbow is making one last pitch against former president Donald Trump in his latest parody video.
On Tuesday (Oct. 29), Rainbow sat down for one more fake interview with the twice-impeached former president, checking in on him as the businessman-turned-politican heads into the final stretch of his campaign (“You look like s–t, how are you feeling?” Rainbow asked with a smile), before wondering aloud why the polls were so close. “I can’t sleep nights,” Rainbow declared. “I keep imagining the dark, hate-filled, Orwellian, deep-fried, comb-over, fever dream hellscape this country will become if your crazy a– wins!”
With the premise set, Rainbow launched into his latest parody track, “Magadu.” Lifting the melody of Olivia Newton-John and the Electric Light Orchestra’s 1980 hit “Xanadu” from the film of the same name, Rainbow immediately takes the song’s premise of a mythical, heavenly place in the track’s title and flips it on its head.
“A place where nobody wants to go/ A country so lame and low/ They call it Magadu,” he sings. “But if you vote for this bag of d–ks/ As soon as Nov. 6/ We’ll be in Magadu!”
As Rainbow speculated about the “dark dystopia of absurd extremes” that would occur under a second Trump presidency, the singer made sure to point to Project 2025, the much-discussed 900-page document outlining a plan for Trump to consolidate power in his second presidency and help impose ultra-conservative policies around the country.
“In the year of Project 2025/ Those creeps gonna kick their creepy plans into overdrive/ No more protections or kindness or joy/ And guess who’s gonna be their poster boy?” Rainbow sings on the bridge. “When Planet Earth dries up and demagogues thrive/ No education and nobody’s free/ They’re gonna set us back a century.”
Closing out his song, Rainbow made his choice in the 2024 election clear as a clip of Vice President Kamala Harris saying “we will not go back” played alongside his final plea: “Let’s no go there, there’s no clean air/ Don’t wanna go, girl, just say no to Magadu!”
Watch the full video above.
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Source: The Washington Post / Getty
The Washington Post has become the latest so-called progressive publication to feel the wrath of the fall-out following its decision not to endorse a presidential candidate in this uncomfortably tight race between Vice President Kamala Harris and the orangey-white nationalist who has normalized slinging lies and bigotry from the political stage.
According to anonymous courses cited in an NPR report, more than 200,000 people canceled their subscriptions to the Post after the publication announced it is “returning to its roots” by staying neutral in the race to the White House and declining to endorse Harris or Donald Trump.
if you’re in line to cancel your washington post subscription, stay in line pic.twitter.com/y2DEOSrVl0
— Florida Chris (@chrislongview) October 28, 2024
It’s not terribly surprising that the Post is basically hemorrhaging subscribers, considering folks on social media put out the call to send a message to the Post and its owner, Jeff Bezos, that its readers won’t stick around if it won’t make an endorsement in an election this crucial.
BREAKING: Jeff Bezos is forcing the Washington Post NOT to endorse Kamala Harris for President — just in case trump wins the election.
🚨EVERYBODY CANCEL YOUR WASHINGTON POST SUBSCRIPTIONS NOW. 🚨
FUCK YOU, JEFF BEZOS. pic.twitter.com/joQOvl5H8z
— BrooklynDad_Defiant!☮️ (@mmpadellan) October 25, 2024
From Variety:
On Friday, Washington Post CEO and publisher William Lewis wrote in an article on the paper’s website, “The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election. Nor in any future presidential election. We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates.” The Post has endorsed a candidate in every presidential election since 1976, with the exception of 1988. Lewis, who joined the post in November 2023, was formerly CEO of Dow Jones & Co. and publisher of the Wall Street Journal.
As first reported by NPR, Bezos — who bought the Washington Post in 2013 — had recently decided that the newspaper would not endorse either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump in the 2024 election. The paper’s editorial board had already drafted an endorsement of Harris. Some observers (and, evidently, thousands of subscribers) interpreted the move as an attempt by Bezos to avoid getting targeted for attacks by Trump.
The fallout for the Post comes just a few days after the Los Angeles Times lost its editorial chief, who resigned over the publication’s relatively new owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, ordered the Times’ editorial board not to endorse Harris after endorsing a Democratic president in every election since 2008. Journalist Mariel Garza said in her resignation letter that it mattered that the largest newspaper in California declined to endorse “in a race this important,” and that “it matters that we won’t even be straight with people about it.”
“It makes us look craven and hypocritical, maybe even a bit sexist and racist,” Garza wrote. “How could we spend eight years railing against Trump and the danger his leadership poses to the country, and then fail to endorse the perfectly decent Democrat challenger — who we previously endorsed for the U.S. Senate?”
Yeah — this is the wrong time for major news outlets to choose silence in the name of pseudo-neutrality and objectivity. The choice between a non-fascist woman who will have worked in all three branches of government if elected and the guy from The Apprentice who spouts non-stop hate speech and propaganda is clear. The Post and the Times needed to do the right thing.
Give Joni Mitchell an assist on Hillary Clinton’s new book.
Appearing at the Detroit Opera House on Monday (Oct. 28) to promote Something Lost, Something Gained: Reflections on Life, Love, and Liberty, the former First Lady, U.S. Senator and Secretary of State told her interviewer, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, that her eighth book (fifth as the sole author) was inspired by watching Mitchell sing “Both Sides Now” — the hit song that gave Clinton’s book its title — at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards in February.
“I saw her and she sang ‘Both Sides Now,’ which is one of my all-time favorite songs,” said Clinton, who suggested the “young people” in the crowd Google it. “It’s about life and love and I listened to her sing it. She’d had a cerebral aneurysm [in 2015] and there she was back on stage singing that incredible anthem about what you think of life, what you think of love at different points of your own journey. I heard that song in my twenties. Obviously I’ve heard it in every decade of my life, and I wanted to take a moment to write some essays about where I see my life now, and particularly about my family, about my friends, about some of these experiences I’ve had, like being First Lady of our country, but also politics, which I care deeply about.”
Clinton added that while some early interviews about the book — whose title was taken from a “Both Sides Now” lyric — were about politics and elections, “I was really thinking more about the people who have been important in my life, the relationships…. It was more a reflection of, ‘OK, I’m this age. At this point in my life, what’s really important?’”
While the nearly 90-minute conversation hit on expected political topics — Clinton’s support of Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and her disdain for former President Donald Trump and his MAGA movement — she also spoke about her recent work in the arts, including co-producing the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Suffs (which is about the women’s suffrage movement in the U.S. that led to the 19th Amendment, which provided women with the right to vote), and her HiddenLight Productions company with daughter Chelsea, whose releases include the Emmy Award-winning documentary In Her Hands and the new doc Zurawski V. Texas about abortion bans in that state. She said Suffs, which is slated to close Jan. 5 on Broadway, has been “absolutely thrilling” and will be heading out on a national tour in the near future.
Clinton also has a Grammy Award in the best spoken word album category, which led Benson to point out that she’s only an Oscar away from being an EGOT. “I don’t know when or if there’s an Academy Award in the future,” Clinton responded, “but I just am so committed to storytelling…. We want to tell stories, we want to be part of the truth-telling part of America… and tell stories about what’s going on in America, in our lives, and particularly women’s lives.”
Clinton did say we should not hold our collective breath for a future Grammy in a musical category.
“I love to sing, but nobody loves to listen,” she confessed, noting that she would sing to Chelsea when she was a baby, with “Moon River” a particular favorite. “This went on for 14, 15, 16 months, something like that. I’d sing to her. Then when she learned to talk…Y’know, people think the trauma of my life is the 2016 election [Clinton won the popular vote but lost to Trump in the Electoral College]. There is that. But (Chelsea) took her little finger and put it on my mouth and said, ‘No sing, mommy.’”
She has, however, continued to sing to her three grandchildren – “When my daughter’s not around.”