{"id":228994,"date":"2026-05-12T20:13:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T20:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/228994\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T20:13:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T20:13:11","slug":"tom-morello-blasts-trump-and-performs-woody-gunthrie-at-nyc-protest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/228994\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00a0Tom Morello Blasts Trump and Performs Woody Gunthrie at NYC Protest"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tTom Morello<\/a>, the outspoken musician and activist known for his work with Rage Against the Machine<\/a>, Audioslave, and Bruce Springsteen<\/a>, didn\u2019t hold back on Tuesday when he joined forces with the New York coalition Hands Off NYC\u00a0during a press conference and solidarity performance at 26 Federal Plaza. Morello addressed a crowd of New Yorkers and slammed the Trump administration<\/a>\u2018s ICE abuses<\/a>, calling out unlawful immigration detention tactics and practices within the White House.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMy mother and I lived at 142nd and Riverside a long time ago,\u201d Morello said, evoking his early years in upper Manhattan. \u201cBrothers and sisters, if I\u2019ve learned one thing in all my years since then, it\u2019s that if it\u00a0looks like fascism, sounds like fascism, dresses like fascism, talks like fascism, kills like fascism, and lies like fascism \u2014 brothers and sisters, it\u2019s fucking fascism.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMorello continued from a personal place, sharing recent experiences with people close to him detained. \u201cA close family friend was recently kidnapped by ICE. A grandmother, a law-abiding, hard-working grandma. Coming home one night from the grocery store, was jumped by mass government thugs, thrown into an unmarked van, and deported without a hint of due process,\u201d he said. \u201cTrump claims that immigrants are criminals and rapists. Well this immigrant grandma never murdered 180 schoolgirls in Iran by bombing them to pieces. And this immigrant grandma never sexually assaulted underage kids with Trump\u2019s ruling-class buddies on Epstein Island. That\u2019s right. You want to arrest murderers and rapists? You need to look no further than the damn White House.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe encouraged people to stand up against the administration and called for a wider movement of people standing up for what\u2019s right. \u201cWe are living in a time where ideas are a crime, where gender is a crime, where skin color is a crime, where the truth is a crime, while the real criminals dine and toast with dictatorship on their minds and golf clubs in their tiny hands,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat is called for right now is a mass movement of peaceful anti-fascist crime fighters. That is you, so let\u2019s go, let\u2019s take the power back and adjourn this motherfucking authoritarian clown show once and for all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tMorello then took out his guitar and performed a stripped-back version of the Woody Guthrie protest<\/a> anthem \u201cThis Land Is Your Land.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t26 Federal Plaza houses a federal immigration court and has been a frequent protest location for New Yorkers fighting against ICE\u2019s abuses and the targeting of immigrant New Yorkers. The event came together to address increased ICE presence in New York, organized just one week after Border Czar Tom Homan threatened to \u201cflood the zone<\/a>\u201d with \u201cmore ICE agents than you\u2019ve ever seen before\u201d in sanctuary cities.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe press conference today also included Allan Dabrio Marrero, a New Yorker who was detained and moved through five ICE facilities in five months. \u201cI constantly worry about my brothers and sisters that are still inside, whose families have been torn apart by this broken system,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tMorello outside 26 Federal Plaza in New York City.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGriffin Lotz for Rolling Stone<\/p>\n

\n\tMurad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition, also spoke and highlighted that several of the immigration tactics being discussed were taking place right at the location of the event. \u201cWe are standing at 26 Federal Plaza, where tens of thousands of people show up to follow the process outlined by the law to seek immigration relief. And thousands of New Yorkers have been tricked and trapped, and taken here. This has never been about immigration enforcement \u2014 it\u2019s about cruelty, and that is the point.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tMorello, who is currently on tour with Springsteen and the E Street Band as part of the 2026 Land of Hope and Dreams American Tour, has continued speaking out against Trump and ICE. (He also got Springsteen to perform at A Concert of Solidarity & Resistance to Defend Minnesota!<\/a>, which he organized in January.) <\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTogether, Bruce, the E Street Band, and I are going to turn a spotlight on the current threats to democracy and human rights happening all around us on the Land of Hope & Dreams American Tour in the spirit of freedom, justice and rock n roll,\u201d he said when it was first announced<\/a> he was joining the tour.<\/p>\n

\n\tLast summer, he released a Fuck ICE playlist<\/a> and recently hosted a Defend Minnesota fundraiser event. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom Morello, the outspoken musician and activist known for his work with Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":228995,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[2035,9,56,63,65,64,6986,89905],"class_list":["post-228994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-ice","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-protest","tag-tom-morello"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}