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Bono is making it known where his allegiances lie in the ongoing drama between Bruce Springsteen and Donald Trump.
The U2 frontman, 65, was asked to disclose whose side he was on amid the continued barbed back and forth between the current U.S. President and the “Born in the U.S.A” singer while visiting Jimmy Kimmel Live on Tuesday.
“I think there’s only one Boss in America,” Bono replied, referring to Springsteen’s nickname as the audience applauded.
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Bono (R) and Bruce Springsteen (L) perform during the Annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony in 2005.TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty
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Host Jimmy Kimmel followed up his line of questioning by asking the “Pride (In the Name of Love)” rocker if he’d seen one of Trump’s recent Truth Social rants, in which the 78-year-old politician claimed in all caps that U2 — alongside Beyoncé, Springsteen, and Oprah Winfrey — had been illegally paid to endorse Kamala Harris during the 2024 presidential election.
“I don’t want to cut in on your action, because I know the president at 1 a.m., or 1:30, or whatever that was, is usually thinking about you,” Bono jokingly told Kimmel, who has famously been engaged in his own feud with Trump for years.
He continued: “But two points I’ll make. One, to be the company of Bruce Springsteen, Beyoncé, and Oprah — I’ll play tambourine in that band. And two, U2 and I have never paid or played a show to support any candidate from any party. It has never happened.”
The Grammy-winning musician noted that, for a platform called Truth Social, “it seems to be pretty antisocial,” adding, “It’s not very true a lot of the time.”
However, Bono suggested that a “clue” as to why he was being lumped in with the other A-listers currently receiving flak from the president “might be the fact that I co-founded the One Campaign, which is, by design, bipartisan.”
The nonprofit organization states on its website that it aims to advocate “for the investments needed to create economic opportunities and healthier lives in Africa,” including quality education, gender equality, and protection from preventable diseases.
“We’ve got a lot of very religious Catholics, Evangelicals, Conservatives who are very, very, very angry with the person that they voted into office having demolished instruments of mercy and compassion like USAID [United States Agency for International Development] or PEPFAR [United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief], which can save 26 million lives of people who have AIDS around the world,” Bono continued. “That’s the America that we love. That’s the America that we all want to be part of. And they are not happy, and there will be trouble.”
Trump and Springsteen’s spat began when the “Dancing in the Dark” singer dubbed the current administration “corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous” during the opening night of his Land of Hope and Dreams tour in Manchester earlier this month.
“Tonight, we ask all who believe in democracy and the best of our American experience to rise with us,” Springsteen said, “Raise your voices against the authoritarianism, and let freedom ring.”
The president fired back at the musician a day later on Truth Social, calling him a “dried-out ‘prune’ of a rocker” and stating that he “never liked him, never liked his music, or his Radical Left Politics.”
Speaking about Springsteen, who currently has 20 Grammys under his belt, Trump continued, “He’s not a talented guy — just a pushy, obnoxious JERK who fervently supported Crooked Joe Biden, a mentally incompetent FOOL, and our WORST EVER President, who came close to destroying our Country.”
Watch Bono discuss Trump in the clip above.