Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong warns U.S. is ‘slipping into fascism' during recent concert
'Ladies and gentlemen, we are slipping into fascism,' the frontman of East Bay punk-rock trio Green Day 's debut performance at Download Festival in the U.K. on Friday, June 13. 'Donald Trump and his administration is a fascist government, and it's up to us to fight back.'
Armstrong made a few other digs at President Donald Trump and his administration during Friday's performance, getting the crowd to join him in calling Trump a 'fat bastard' and tweaking the lyrics of 'Jesus of Suburbia' to call Vice President JD Vance an ableist slur.
His bold comments came just a day before Trump hosted a military parade for the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army in Washington D.C. The event coincided with the president's 79th birthday — and nationwide No Kings protests, which were organized as a direct counter to the parade to denounce the Trump administration's surge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests.
The demonstrations in San Francisco, Oakland, Palo Alto, Santa Cruz and beyond on Saturday, June 14 drew a total of more than 5 million Americans.
Armstrong has long voiced his contempt for Trump over the years, and recently showed support for protesters in Los Angeles who were rallying against ICE raids across the city and the president's subsequent deployment of the National Guard. Last week, he shared an incendiary video of the anti-ICE demonstrations to Instagram, making his stance clear in the post by captioning it with emojis of a middle finger and an ice cube.
They last performed in the Bay Area at BottleRock Napa Valley.
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