{"id":674582,"date":"2026-05-30T18:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T18:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/674582\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T18:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T18:38:10","slug":"trump-may-cancel-freedom-250-concerts-to-give-speech-after-artists-pull-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/674582\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump may cancel Freedom 250 concerts to give speech after artists pull out"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">US President Donald Trump said on Saturday \u2060that he was considering cancelling \u2060a planned series of concerts on \u2060Washington\u2019s National Mall commemorating the nation\u2019s 250th anniversary after a string of artists withdrew from the event, and replacing them with a speech and political-style rally instead.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The concerts were planned as part of the larger Great American State Fair, \u200ca 16-day event running from June 25 to July 10, 2026.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Organisers said the fair, organised by the Freedom 250 group, would stretch on the National Mall from the US Capitol to the Washington Monument, with concert stages, state pavilions, exhibits, rides and other attractions spread across the Mall.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">But the musical line-up has been hit by \u2060a series of cancellations. On Friday, Bret Michaels, the lead singer of the rock band Poison, \u200cbecame the fifth performer to withdraw from the concerts, saying that the event was not the non-partisan celebration that he thought it would be.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Organisers \u200chave not publicly detailed the reasons for the departures, though the exits have \u2060raised questions about \u2060the viability of the event as originally envisioned.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Singer Bret Michaels performs at halftime during an NFL football game in Glendale, Arizona, in September 2019. Photo: AP\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/b4175a9a-1b60-4f85-8d2b-bfbeae5a24fa_107d22cd.jpg\" title=\"Singer Bret Michaels performs at halftime during an NFL football game in Glendale, Arizona, in September 2019. Photo: AP\"\/>Singer Bret Michaels performs at halftime during an NFL football game in Glendale, Arizona, in September 2019. Photo: AP<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">In a social media post on Saturday, Trump suggested the concert \u200cseries may no longer be necessary if performers continue to back out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US President Donald Trump said on Saturday \u2060that he was considering cancelling \u2060a planned series of concerts on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":674583,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,294207,51542,12,57158,28792,292143,105515,3,46608,21,19,22,20,25,137476,24,2002,270092],"class_list":["post-674582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-america-is-back-rally","tag-bret-michaels","tag-donald-trump","tag-elvis","tag-freedom","tag-great-american-state-fair","tag-national-mall","tag-news","tag-poison","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-us-capitol","tag-usa","tag-washington","tag-washington-monument"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=674582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}