The man known for belting out “Baby, we were born to run” has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president in the 2024 election.
Clad in a flannel shirt, Bruce Springsteen made the announcement in a video on social media Friday, “with full knowledge no less important than those of any of my fellow citizens, here is my answer.”
“I’m supporting Kamala Harris for president and [Minnesota Gov.] Tim Walz for vice president, and opposing Donald Trump and [Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio]” Springsteen said in the video on Instagram. “Here’s why.”
Voters are approaching one of the “most consequential elections in our nation’s history,” Springsteen said. “Perhaps not since the Civil War has this great country felt as politically, spiritually and emotionally divided as it does than at this moment. It doesn’t have to be this way.”
“The common values, the shared stories that make us a great and united nation are waiting to be rediscovered and retold once again,” Springsteen continued. “Now that will take time, hard work, intelligence, faith and women and men with the national good guiding in their hearts.”
The United States is “the most powerful nation on Earth,” he said, “not just because of her overwhelming military strength or economic power, but because of what she stands for, what she means, what she believes in. Freedom, social justice, equal opportunity, the right to be and love who you want.”
“These are the things that make America great,” Springsteen said. “Donald Trump is the most dangerous candidate for president in my lifetime. His disdain for the sanctity of our Constitution, the sanctity of democracy, the sanctity of the rule of law and the sanctity of the peaceful transfer of power should disqualify him from the office of president ever again.”
However, Harris and Walz “are committed to a vision of this country that respects and includes everyone, regardless of class, religion, race, your political point of view or sexual identity,” Springsteen said.
The two Democrats will grow an economy that benefits everyone, “not just the few, like me, on top,” Springsteen said with a chuckle. “That’s the vision of America I’ve been consistently writing about for 55 years.”
Springsteen emphasized that he respects everyone’s decision in this election, “but like you, I’ve only got one vote. It’s one of the most precious possessions that I have,” he said.
A longtime critic of Trump, Springsteen told Rolling Stone in 2016 that the former president was a “moron.” During Trump’s re-election campaign four years later, Springsteen told The Atlantic that the country would not survive four more years of Trump’s ”custodianship.”
Harris holds a two-and-a-half-point lead over Trump nationally, according to FiveThirtyEight’s aggregate polling. She stands at 48.4% while Trump is at 45.9%.
On Thursday, Harris held a campaign event with former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., in Wisconsin, NBC News reported. Trump went after Cheney, a longtime critic of his, on Truth Social. He slammed her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney for “our ridiculous journey into the Middle East, where Trillions of Dollars were spent, millions of people were killed.”
“What a pathetic couple that is, both suffering gravely from Trump Derangement Syndrome,” Trump wrote on his social media platform.
On Saturday, Trump, along with Elon Musk, is expected to return to Butler, Pennsylvania, where the former president survived an assassination attempt at a rally on July 13, NPR wrote.
