Jack White Goes Scorched Earth on Donald Trump: “How Petty and Pathetic and Thin Skinned Could This Administration Get?”
The Trump administration is in yet another feud with a major musician who’s voiced their disapproval of the president, this time trading barbs with prolific rock star Jack White.
After previously critiquing Trump’s “vulgar, gold leafed and gaudy” redesign of the Oval Office this week — which caused the Trump administration to call him a “washed-up, has-been loser” — White is speaking out again, voicing his concern that Trump is “dismantling democracy.”
“How funny that it wasn’t me calling out Trump’s blatant fascist manipulation of government, his gestapo ICE tactics, his racist remarks about Latinos, Native Americans, etc.,” White wrote in a lengthy statement on Instagram, further including callouts of Trump’s “ignorance of the dying children in Sudan, Gaza, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, his lack of empathy for military veterans and those struggling with poverty,” among many other claims. “No, it wasn’t me calling out any of that, it was the fucking DECOR OF THE OVAL OFFICE remarks I made that got them to respond with insults. How petty and pathetic and thin skinned could this administration get?”
White continued to say that Trump “is a danger to not just America but the whole world.” He stated that Trump is “masquerading as a christian, as a leader, as a person with actual empathy,” writing that “no intelligent person can defend this low life fascist.”
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White has long made his disdain for the Trump administration loud and clear, with the White Stripes suing Trump last year over an unauthorized use of “Seven Nation Army.” They dropped the suit last November. Before then, he’d sold T-shirts during Trump’s first presidential campaign in 2016 that read “Icky Trump,” a play on White Stripes’ album Icky Thump.
On Monday, White posted a photo of Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, criticizing Trump’s design of the White House as ostentatious.
“Look at how disgusting Trump has transformed the historic White House,” White wrote in the post. “It’s now a vulgar, gold leafed and gaudy, professional wrestler’s dressing room. Can’t wait for the UFC match on the front lawn too, he’s almost fully achieved the movie ‘Idiocracy.’”
“Look at his disgusting taste, would you even buy a used car from this conman, let alone give him the nuclear codes?” White continued. “A gold plated trump bible would look perfect up on that mantle with a pair of trump shoes on either side wouldn’t it? What an embarrassment to American history. Also pictured in this photograph, a REAL leader of a nation in a black suit.”
The Trump Administration responded on Tuesday, with White House communications director Steven Cheung calling White “a washed-up, has-been loser posting drivel on social media because he clearly has ample time on his hands due to his stalled career” in a statement to The Daily Beast.
“It’s apparent he’s been masquerading as a real artist, because he fails to appreciate, and quite frankly disrespects, the splendor and significance of the Oval Office inside of ‘The People’s House,’” Cheung said.
White, who will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with The White Stripes in November, is one of many musicians who’ve attracted Trump’s critique since his second term began. Back in May, Trump slammed Bruce Springsteen as “not a talented guy — just a pushy, obnoxious JERK” after Springsteen had called out the administration during some of his European concerts. Trump also called for an investigation into artists like Springsteen and Beyoncé over their appearances at Kamala Harris rallies.
In White’s Instagram post on Wednesday, he called being insulted by Trump’s administration “a badge of honor.”
“And no I’m not a Democrat either, I’m a human being raised in Detroit,” White said. “I’m an artist who’s owned his own businesses like his own upholstery shop and recording label since he was 21 years old, who has enough street sense to know when a 3 card monte dealer is a cheap grifter and a thief.”
