'Lame!': Green Day Slammed After Reworking Hit Song to Trash Donald Trump Supporters During NYE Performance
Jan. 2 2024, Published 11:25 a.m. ET
Rock band Green Day was called out by Donald Trump supporters after the musical artists changed their lyrics during their New Year's Eve performance.
While singing their hit song "American Idiot" on Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve special on ABC, frontman Billie Joe Armstrong sang, "I'm not a part of the MAGA agenda" instead of, "I'm not a part of a redneck agenda."
Of course, MAGA — which stands for Make America Great Again, a slogan Trump, 77, frequently says on the campaign trail — loyalists were enraged once they heard the new words.
One person wrote, "I now hate Green Day what a shame," while another person simply stated, "LAME."
"Green Day is now Green Done. Don't they understand it's no longer Hollywood Cool with the rest of us to take potshots at DJT? We the people are speaking!" a third person fumed, while a fourth added, "Yes it's sad to see punk rockers grasping at relevance."
This is hardly the first time Armstrong, 51, has been outspoken about politics. In 2016, he chanted "No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA" while performing at the American Music Awards.
That same year, he compared Trump to Adolf Hitler.
"The worst problem I see about Trump is who his followers are. I actually feel bad for them, because they're poor, working-class people who can't get a leg up. They're just p----- off and he's preyed on their anger," he said in an interview with Kerrang! magazine.
"He just said, 'You have no options and I'm the only one, and I'm going to take care of it myself.' I mean, that's f------ Hitler, man!" the musician added.
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Then, in 2018, Armstrong made it clear that he's not a fan of Trump, who is running for president again in the 2024 election.
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"I f----------- hate Donald Trump so much," he said during a private performance in 2018, per Variety. "I used to scream I hated George Bush. This one is a little different. This one is bad, it's like acid gone bad."
"Back then, if I look at a collage of one of those songs, it's become real life," Armstrong said of "American Idiot," which is about the Iraq War. "Without getting too political, it's important we look out for each other and show compassion."