{"id":703690,"date":"2026-05-30T12:09:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T12:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/703690\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T12:09:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T12:09:08","slug":"bill-maher-mocks-trumps-freedom-250-concert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/703690\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Maher Mocks Trump’s Freedom 250 Concert"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tBill Maher<\/a> poked fun at the many artists who have dropped out<\/a> of President Donald Trump<\/a>\u2018s forthcoming Freedom 250 concert series during his monologue on Real Time Friday night.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re having a big 250th\u00a0birthday party for America, a concert. They announced the lineup. Vanilla Ice, Milli Vanilli, Morris Day,\u00a0Bret Michaels,\u201d he said. \u201cI think this is very admirable about the president, it shows he\u2019s concerned for the unemployed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMaher continued, \u201cAnd then, after they announced this all-star lineup, a lot of them said, \u2018No, what are you talking about? We\u2019re not playing.\u2019 That\u2019s got to hurt a lot when you can\u2019t close the deal with Milli Vanilli.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Friday, Bret Michaels and The Commodores joined a group of musical talent who announced they were dropping out of the concert series. In a statement on his website, the Poison lead singer explained that \u201cunfortunately, what was presented to us as a celebration of our country has evolved into something much more divisive than what I agreed to be a part of.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cConcerns have also been raised regarding the safety of my fans, band, crew, family and myself, including threats that are completely unfounded and unforgivable,\u201d Michaels\u2019 statement continued. \u201cBecause of that, I have made the difficult decision to step away from this performance. \u2026 This isn\u2019t about politics. It\u2019s about staying true to what I\u2019ve always believed in. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. That\u2019s one of the freedoms our veterans fought for and something I\u2019ve always respected. But as a father, friend and bandmate, I have to take threats and safety concerns seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tYoung MC, Morris Day<\/a> <\/a>and Martina McBride<\/a> have also exited the Freedom 250 concert slate. Milli Vanilli was also announced as part of the lineup, however Jodie Rocco, a member of the group, told the Associated Press on Thursday that she was \u201cshocked\u201d to see the Milli Vanilli name on the list. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe event will take place from June 25 to July 10 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.,\u00a0as part of the Freedom 250 public-private partnership, which is backed by the Trump administration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bill Maher poked fun at the many artists who have dropped out of President Donald Trump\u2018s forthcoming Freedom…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":703691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[13689,49,48,75,45744,3277,348],"class_list":["post-703690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-bill-maher","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-real-time-with-bill-maher","tag-trump","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=703690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/703691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}