Trump marks America’s 250th with Fourth of July speech
President Donald Trump gave a late-night address at the National Mall to mark America’s 250th anniversary.
Sammy Hagar is defending his planned show at a Fourth of July event over its perceived political ties.
The Red Rocker was one of several acts set to perform at Freedom 250’s “Salute to America” event on July 4 before most of the programming was canceled over weather concerns. Other acts that were part of the original lineup included Lynyrd Skynyrd, Gretchen Wilson, Big & Rich and Lee Greenwood.
But before his performance was scrapped, Hagar gave fans a preview on social media. After posting a video from rehearsal, the former Van Halen frontman was met with backlash from some fans over the event’s ties to President Donald Trump.
Freedom 250, the group organizing the event, was formed under Trump’s direction and has been criticized by some public figures over the affiliation with his administration.
In May, a slew of musicians who were slated to perform at Freedom 250’s 16-day state fair event backed out, with some citing politics.
However, the group has previously denied allegations of partisanship.
“Freedom 250 is a nonpartisan organization, full stop – and our track record of collaboration across red, blue, and purple states speaks for itself,” Rachel Reisner, a spokesperson for Freedom 250, previously told USA TODAY.
Here’s what Hagar had to say about the criticism.
Sammy Hagar says Freedom 250 event involvement was ‘not a political thing’
After Hagar posted a video of his rehearsal for the Independence Day event to Instagram on July 2, some fans in the comments blasted his planned performance.
“This is the most tone deaf thing you’ve ever done,” one commenter said.
“Anyone who is associated with this fiasco is not someone that I can support. I am very very disappointed in the choice you made,” another fan wrote.
Hagar responded to his detractors in a comment on the post the following day, writing in part that he “sincerely can’t understand why anyone would have a problem with this.”
“This is not a political thing! This is the celebration of our country’s birthday no matter who the president is at this time,” he wrote.
Some agreed with him in the comments.
“The Celebration is not about party politics, It WAS always about Celebrating Our Independence Day!! Glad to see you’re involved,” one person said.
Lynyrd Skynyrd, which was also set to perform, similarly addressed its planned performance at the show after the cancelation.
“We are still disappointed that the weather had other plans for us last night,” the band captioned an Instagram post with a series of photos and videos from rehearsals ahead of July 4.
Sammy Hagar planned speech about unity for canceled Freedom 250 performance
After his performance was canceled, Hagar took to social media again to share a message he intended to deliver at the Freedom 250 event.
“I’m so sorry about the cancellation up to tonight’s #fourthofjuly event in DC,” he wrote on Instagram. “I was so excited to present this speech to the world at the beginning of the Van Halen song ‘right now.'”
Hagar shared a photo of a written speech that began, “Right now we are celebrating our country’s 250th birthday & right now would be a good time to reunite this country.”
“Come together right now. Stop the violence. Stop the hate,” the speech continued.
Melina Khan is a national trending reporter for USA TODAY. Keep up with her on X @melinakh and Instagram @bymelinakhan.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.usatoday.com ’
