![\"Text](\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/a\/assets\/texttospeech.svg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Listen to this article<\/p>\n
Estimated 2 minutes<\/p>\n
The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.<\/p>\n
U.S. President Donald Trump said Saturday he’s considering cancelling \u200ca series of concerts commemorating the country’s 250th anniversary after \u200ba number of artists \u200bdropped out, and he may give a speech instead.<\/p>\n
Trump said on the social media platform Truth Social that he \u200bwas considering giving a speech \u2060and rally instead, and called \u2060himself “the Number One Attraction anywhere in \u2060the \u2060World, \u200bthe man who gets much \u200blarger audiences \u2060than Elvis in his prime and he does so without a guitar,” referring to the late Elvis Presley.<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, \u200bBret Michaels, frontman of \u2060the \u2060rock \u200cgroup Poison, became the fifth musician to withdraw<\/a> from the Freedom 250 concerts, which are \u2060scheduled for June 25 through July \u200c10 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n Freedom 250 says on\u00a0its website<\/a>\u00a0that it’s about “Celebrating the Triumph of the American Spirit.” But other events and commemorations surrounding the U.S.’s birthday have been criticized for\u00a0glorifying Trump<\/a>. They include efforts to put Trump’s face on commemorative coins, his signature on bills and his face on a special passport.<\/p>\n Other artists who’ve also dropped out of the anniversary event include American country singer Martina McBride and the funk and soul group the Commodores.<\/p>\n WATCH | Questions swirl around 250th anniversary celebrations in U.S.:<\/p>\n Is ‘America 250’ becoming Trump 250? | About That<\/p>\n From cash to passports to a UFC fight on U.S. President Donald Trump’s birthday, plans for the 250th anniversary of America’s independence are raising one question: who is the celebration really for? (Photo credits: The Canadian Press, Reuters, Adobe Stock, Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 2 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":704551,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49,48,75],"class_list":["post-704550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704550","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=704550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/704551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=704550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=704550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=704550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1780177269_365_default.jpg\")
<\/p>\n