Update: After Freedom 250 Performers Cancel MAGA’s July 4 Festival in DC, Trump Says He May “Perform”

Update: With the majority of artists pulling out of Trump’s MAGA celebration, the President looks to be canceling the music portion altogether rather than scraping the bottom of an already empty barrel. Instead, he announced in a Truth Social Post that he’ll headline an “America Is Back” rally at the same time instead. For Melania’s sake, we just hope it’s not a dance routine. As a reminder, Congress approved a nonpartisan bicentennial celebration called America250 back in 2016 when Barack Obama was President that the current White House resident has since hijacked, diverting funds for his own shamelessly self-promoting Freedom250 rally.

Want a symbolic indication of just how radioactive any kind of association with a deeply unpopular President currently is to touring performers? Try this one on: Donald Trump is so incredibly hated that even people who literally won seasons of The Apprentice are refusing to appear at events that have anything to do with him. Truly, when you have lost Bret Michaels, what do you have left?

Of the nine performers originally announced last week for Freedom 250’s MAGA-celebration in Washington D.C. officially known as the “Great American State Fair,” six of them have subsequently fled the sinking ship as the event teeters on the edge of a potential cancelation. Michaels, the Poison frontman and one-time Rock of Love star who won Celebrity Apprentice in 2010, became the latest on Friday morning to nope out of there, saying via Instagram that “I’ve spent my entire career bringing people together through music, positivity, and good vibes. My shows have never been about politics. They’re about giving people a place to come together. Unfortunately, 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.”

This is objectively hilarious, that Bret Michaels of all people feels he must protect his reputation and image by fleeing from the hot-button embarrassment of being even tangentially associated with Donald Trump in this moment. Truly, it was an august group of washed-up performers and has-beens that the Freedom 250 crew had assembled for the Great American State Fair, featuring such luminaries as Vanilla Ice, Milli Vanilli, C+C Music Factory and Morris Day and The Time. I think it’s safe to say the programming choices here reflect the fact that MAGA organizers expected no one under the age of 50 in attendance. Now, the question is whether there will be a single performer left by the time that July 4 rolls around.

Of the originally announced nine acts, the following six have already announced their cancelations: Bret Michaels, Young MC, Milli Vanilli, The Commodores, Morris Day and The Time, and the event’s one legitimate superstar, country icon Martina McBride. The only remaining three are Vanilla Ice (the only act to confirm he will perform), C+C Music Factory and a so-far silent Flo Rida. Can you imagine the tier of performers that the Freedom 250 organizers are no doubt scrambling to reach out to at this very moment to fill in some of the gaps in the schedule on short notice, when they’ve already whiffed on the likes of Milli Vanilli? Are Kajagoogoo or Falco available? Will Kid Rock come riding in on a white horse (or an Apache helicopter) to save the day?

I’m thinking of forming a band just so we can not play at Trump’s dumb Freedom 250 thing.

— Hoarse Whisperer (@therealhoarse.bsky.social) 11:12 PM · May 28, 2026

This disaster has been a long time in coming. Way back in 2016, Congress established a bipartisan commission called America250 to “plan and orchestrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.” When Trump returned to the White House in 2025, however, he began to unravel the commission’s plans, first appointing some of his own lackeys to America250 before deciding to create a separate, competing organization called Freedom 250. The Trump administration then diverted the vast majority of funds that had already been allocated for the occasion from America250 to Freedom 250, with the former still existing as a standalone nonprofit, but without nearly the funding it should theoretically have had to plan events for the occasion. Freedom 250 has subsequently gone full-on into the expected MAGA grifting mode, soliciting $1 million donations in exchange for access to Trump, among other things. And that’s how we get to their planning of the now-disastrous “Great American State Fair.”

The artists originally announced for said fair, meanwhile, have universally said that they were sold on the performance as a completely apolitical event celebrating American history, and had no idea (doubtful) that the President or his closest MAGA allies were in any way involved. Regardless, once their involvement with the Freedom 250 festival began flying around the web, the likes of Martina McBride suddenly felt a whole lot differently about the whole situation.

“I was presented with an opportunity to perform at a nonpartisan event, but that turned out to be misleading,” wrote McBride to fans online, explaining her cancelation. “I asked lots of questions and was assured this was a nonpartisan event that was meant to celebrate ALL 50 states. Yesterday things started changing and what we were told is, in fact, not what is happening.”

The online MAGA contingent naturally responded to this by immediately attacking McBride as a traitor to America in general, with Trump ally Richard Grenell, the man put in charge of destroying the Kennedy Center, proclaiming that McBride has “always been a woke Lefty.” Odd; why did you try to book her for your event, then?

sir, martina mcbride has gone woke

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— Denny Carter (@dennycarter.bsky.social) 8:48 PM · May 28, 2026

Of course, the fact that MAGA is pathologically unable to recognize the political leanings of major American performers and musicians is no new observation, given how many of them are still shocked on a yearly basis to find out that Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” is not an anthem of praise about their great country. Martina McBride is no doubt extremely aware of this, given how her 1994 hit “Independence Day” has been co-opted by the right for decades merely because of its title, despite the fact that the song is actually about an 8-year-old girl struggling in a household of domestic violence, whose mother burns down their house on July 4 to escape an abusive husband. So naturally, Sean Hannity made “Independence Day” the theme music of his radio show for 13 years! Media literacy and MAGA: Name a more iconic duo.

Regardless, it is undeniably funny to watch the entire Trump-adjacent Freedom 250 organization, led by the Trump-appointed CEO Keith Krach, react with befuddlement and confusion to the idea that the vast majority of the country hates their guts. When you’re getting slagged by a group like The Commodores on social media, is there really any way back?

“Our music has always been our voice, and we choose not to publicly affiliate with any single political party,” said the classic soul band’s statement. “We support the betterment of all Americans.”