Bruce Springsteen pulled no punches when he performed on Stephen Colbert’s penultimate Late Show, using the spot to torch the Trump administration and the executives he believes pulled the plug on the comedian’s CBS run.
The Boss appeared on today’s episode — the second-to-last instalment before The Late Show signs off for good tomorrow — and was introduced with a simple “Ladies and gentlemen, Bruce Springsteen”.
“I’m here in support tonight of Stephen, because you’re the first guy in America who lost his show because we’ve got a president who can’t take a joke,” Springsteen told the studio, as per Rolling Stone. “And because Larry and David Ellison feel they need to kiss his ass to get what they want.
“Stephen, these are small-minded people who got no idea what the freedoms of this beautiful country are supposed to be about. This is for you.”
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Springsteen then delivered an emotional performance of “Streets of Minneapolis”, the protest track Springsteen released in January and that the E Street Band live-debuted on the opening night of their Land of Hope and Dreams tour in Minneapolis. The song was written in response to ICE’s crackdown on immigrants in the city and the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
It’s not the first time Springsteen has used the stage to go after the Trump administration on this tour. The President labelled The Boss a “bad, and very boring singer” on Truth Social and urged his followers to boycott the run, prompting the American Federation of Musicians to defend him. Springsteen himself promised ahead of the tour that the run was “going to be political”.
CBS announced last year that it was cancelling The Late Show, framing the move as “purely a financial decision”. The cancellation has been widely speculated to be linked to parent company Paramount’s attempts to curry favour with Trump and the FCC to push through its merger with Skydance — a company in which David Ellison, the son of Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison, looms large.
