{"id":836635,"date":"2026-06-01T11:00:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T11:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/836635\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T11:00:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T11:00:15","slug":"john-oliver-goes-off-on-trumps-freedom-250-concert-debacle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/836635\/","title":{"rendered":"John Oliver Goes Off on Trump’s Freedom 250 Concert Debacle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tLike his fellow HBO host Bill Maher<\/a>, John Oliver<\/a> dedicated the opening portion of his hit show \u201cLast Week Tonight\u201d with a takedown of President Trump\u2019s Freedom 250 concert series<\/a> celebrating America\u2019s 250th birthday that initially boasted a lineup of not-so-relevant acts like Vanilla Ice, C+C Music Factory and Milli Vanilli.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt is a stacked lineup of people that you haven\u2019t thought about since 2009,\u201d joked Oliver. \u201cHonestly, that sounds less like America\u2019s 250th birthday and more like the playlist at Rhonda\u2019s 50th. The only really surprising thing about that lineup is there aren\u2019t special appearances from the ShamWow guy and the Gushers kid whose head turned into a raspberry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRunning June 25 to July 10 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the Freedom 250<\/a> concert series was initially billed as a nonpartisan celebration of America\u2019s Semiquincentennial. While planning initially began in 2016 from the bipartisan congressional nonprofit America250, the Trump-aligned group Freedom 250 took over planning during Trump\u2019s second term as a means to politicize the celebrations.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNow, crucially, the organization planning that event, Freedom 250, is not the same thing as the non-profit America250, led by a bipartisan board created by Congress. Instead, it\u2019s a public-private partnership launched by the White House with some dicey elements, including the fact that for $1 million, donors to it could get access to Trump,\u201d Oliver explained, adding, \u201cAnd as its political slant became clear, acts who were part of that initial announcement quickly began to bail.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tYes, acts such as rapper Young MC, R&B groups Morris Day and the Time and The Commodores, country star Martina McBride, and Bret Michaels all pulled out<\/a> of the Freedom 250 concert series once they\u2019d learned more about the celebrations. There have been so many acts pulling out that Trump launched into a late-night rant<\/a> on his social media platform Truth Social, calling the artists \u201coverpriced singers, who nobody wants to hear, whose music is boring, and yet who do nothing but complain\u201d and saying that they should \u201ccancel it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYeah, that is a lot of cancellations. Although I do have to tell you: Vanilla Ice did not pull out, which I do realize sounds like the answer to the question, \u2018Why does that baby have frosted tips?\u2019\u201d cracked Oliver. \u201cEven some of the acts currently still scheduled to play may not be the exact people you\u2019re expecting. For instance, neither of the C\u2019s in C+C Music Factory will be performing, it\u2019s just their rapper Freedom Williams, who initially agreed to perform, then considered backing out, then doubled down on performing because he was so mad that people were criticizing him\u201d \u2014 a decision Williams rather hilariously explained during a seven-minute video he made while taking a poop in his bathroom.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn addition to the Freedom 250 concert series, there will be a UFC Freedom 250 series of fights at the White House, a Freedom 250 Grand Prix IndyCar race and a Times Square ball drop.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEven with those cancellations, there will still be things to do, because Freedom 250 is also touting attractions that will include state and territory showcases from across America, a 110-foot Ferris wheel, CEO and innovator-led conversations and demonstrations, and special screenings of the iconic films \u2018National Treasure\u2019 and \u2018National Treasure: Book of Secrets,\u2019<\/a> bringing a real \u2018substitute teacher doesn\u2019t give a fuck\u2019 energy to the proceedings,\u201d offered Oliver.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe continued: \u201cAlthough, given how everything has been going, I wouldn\u2019t be remotely surprised if tomorrow we got a press release reading, \u2018Due to divisive politics, I will no longer be attending the 250th celebration\u2019 from the fucking Ferris wheel.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Like his fellow HBO host Bill Maher, John Oliver dedicated the opening portion of his hit show \u201cLast…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":836636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[9],"tags":[69,171,340251,53747,54940,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-836635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-donald-trump","tag-entertainment","tag-freedom-250","tag-john-oliver","tag-last-week-tonight-with-john-oliver","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116674509360340576","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=836635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/836636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=836635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=836635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=836635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}