Getty Legend, a multiple Grammy winner, has been a vocal critic of President Trump
On Wednesday, in response to President Trump’s abrupt disbanding of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy & Policy Forum, John Legend took the announcement as an opportunity to once again take a shot at the embattled president. Legend, seemingly playing off the notion that Trump dissolved the council as a pre-emptive move considering that the majority of the council’s members were resigning after his controversial response to the events in Charlottesville this past weekend, tweeted that Trump could employ a similar strategy when it came to his presidency.
Legend hasn’t been shy when it comes to criticizing President Trump and over the course of the past few days the singer has been especially vocal. On Saturday he tweeted out a fiery retort to Speaker Paul Ryan’s statement on the Charlottesville protests, saying that Ryan should “impeach the white supremacist in the White House or STFU.” Following Trump’s wild press conference on Tuesday, Legend unleashed a string of tweets in response.
Legend’s criticism of Trump has been a constant for the past few months. In late June, following the president’s attack on the hosts of Morning Joe, Legend referenced First Lady Melania Trump’s pledge to end cyber-bullying, saying it must be “off to a slow start.” Then a few weeks later, after another attempt to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act fell short and Trump responded by saying we should “let ObamaCare fail,” Legend almost seemed in disbelief, tweeting that the “president wants more people to die so he can embarrass Obama.”
Criticizing the president is a family affair for Legend. His wife, model Chrissy Teigen, has long been a vocal critic of Trump. In July, after years of trolling him and responding to his tweets with a mixture of sarcasm and disdain, the president blocked her, something she celebrated on Twitter.
After 9 years of hating Donald J Trump, telling him “lol no one likes you” was the straw
Legend spoke about Trump prior to his performance at the TIME 100 gala in April, saying he was “a terrible president” who was “manifestly unqualified, not curious, not good at legislating or really anything the job requires.”
“He doesn’t have any depth about any subject. And he’s also using the office of the presidency as a way to make money with himself with his businesses, so he’s corrupt. I can’t say anything nice about the guy, I think he’s one of the worst people I’ve ever encountered in public life.”
In January, shortly before Trump took office and while promoting the show Underground Railroad, which he produces, Legend said the show was relevant today and that the show and the election shared a similar lesson in that “even when people see progress, not guaranteed to remain.” Speaking about Trump directly, Legend, a 10-time Grammy winner, said the president “has promised to make us a less just and less free country” and that “those who believe in justice and freedom are going to have to stand up for it.”
Speaking out and political activism isn’t new for Legend and didn’t start with the election of Trump. In 2010 he released Wake Up, a collection of protest songs from the 1960’s and 1970’s that he recorded with the Roots. The album won a Grammy in 2010 for Best R&B Album.