Green Day bashes Trump during New Year’s Eve performance

Mid-song during Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, singer Billie Joe Armstrong made a pointed lyric change

By Kelly McClure

Nights & Weekends Editor

Published January 1, 2024 11:51AM (EST)

Billie Joe Armstrong and Tré Cool of Green Day perform during Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2024 in Hollywood, California. (Gilbert Flores/Penske Media via Getty Images)
Billie Joe Armstrong and Tré Cool of Green Day perform during Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2024 in Hollywood, California. (Gilbert Flores/Penske Media via Getty Images)

During their set on Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve special on Sunday night, Green Day found an opportunity to make one last swipe at Donald Trump to cap 2023.

While performing the song "American Idiot," the title track of their 2004 album which was originally a poke at George Bush, lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong changed the lyric “I’m not a part of a redneck agenda” to “I’m not a part of the MAGA agenda," causing people to flood social media with their takes on the matter.

"Green Day's been dookie for years," Brent Terhune said in a satirical TikTok video shared to X (formerly Twitter), riffing on the title of the band's most famous album, released in 1994.

Elsewhere, journalist Brian Krassenstein weighed in with, "Green Day was right about the Bush administration in 2004 when this song was released and they are right again twenty years later.  People have the right to express their political opinions through Art. That’s what this is. If you don’t like it, don’t listen to their music."

This is not the first time that Green Day has used their stage time to speak out against Trump. During the 2016 American Music Awards, Armstrong chanted, "No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA," during the band's performance. 

 


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