Jack White has made it crystal clear over the past few months that he is not playing the MAGA GOP’s games. After repeatedly slamming Donald Trump last year for everything from his controversial gold-plated White House makeover and East Wing demolition to the President’s “vile,” hate-filled obituary for beloved moviemaker Rob Reiner, White has not held his tongue when it comes to calling out the divisive rhetoric and actions of Trump 2.0.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer was at it again this week when he took aim at U.S. Rep Tim Burchett after the Congressman from White’s home state of Tennessee shared a misleading AI-generated video that appeared to show the “Seven Nation Army” star telling Trump supporters to not listen to his music.
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While X flagged Burchett’s original post as containing fake footage using quotes falsely attributed to White (with the links to those videos seemingly deleted from the first version), the 61-year-old Republican who has served Tennessee’s second congressional district since 2019 doubled down in his accompanying message, which tauntingly read: “That cute girl from the Addams Family got really ugly and angry.”
The attempt at a schoolyard jab — in keeping with the Trump administration’s frequent use of social media to mock, belittle and denigrate its perceived opponents, sometimes using AI-generated memes or videos — indeed got White riled up. In a heated response posted on Tuesday (Dec. 30), White slammed his state’s rep for going so low.
“Can you believe that a U.S. congressman, that’s right, a CONGRESSMAN (from my state no less), a once hallowed and respected position in our society, would repost an AI generated video, containing a false comment that I never said and refuted (without researching that I might add) and like a 10 year old on a playground, add to it attempted insults to my physical appearance?” White wrote. “What kind of joke are we all living in now?”
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Reacting to the post’s claims that White told MAGA supporters “don’t even think about listening to my music, you fascists,” White clarified, “All of trump’s lackeys and bootlicks like this elected official are cowards that would never talk this way to anybody like me or you in person. trump really lowered the bar when he brought his scourge to this government. Neither him nor his sycophantic congressmen and women manifest class or dignity, they all just regurgitate cheap, childish, grade school bullying points and fake christian(!) rhetoric. It’s really sad how embarrassing our leadership has become, I so wish the average American conservative could have a conversation with any intelligent people in other countries around the world, just for one brief moment, and actually see just what a joke our government (and by proxy our country) has become.”
White said his great state “deserves better” than Burchett, while taking aim at giving power and a voice to what he called “low class playground bullies” such as Trump and his state’s rep. Billboard has reached out to the congressman’s office for comment.
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“The great state of Tennessee deserves better Mr. Burchett but you and your cult are too dug in and blinded to even realize it,” White wrote. “Holding a bible in one hand and a flag in the other while you stomp out our democracy day by day in the service of one man’s ego so that he can use taxpayer money to receive his fake peace prize and tear down the White House brick by brick. Embarrassing. I’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, there will come a time in the future when none of these right wingers will admit to being a part of this cult from this time period. All the maga hats will be in landfills and actual intelligent and honorable leadership will take their place.”
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Instead, White encouraged his fellow Americans to focus instead on such “highly educated and well spoken leaders” of the past including presidents John F. Kennedy and Franklin Delano Roosevelt and civil rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr., “because when i look around now, I’m wondering if half of these so called representatives have ever actually read the constitution that they pledged an oath to,” the rocker wrote.
Last August, White lashed out at Trump for his White House renovations, calling the all-gold-everything decor “vulgar, gold leafed and gaudy,” comparing it to a “wrestler’s dressing room.” Then, in December, White expressed his outrage at Trump’s insult-filled comments about Spinal Tap director Reiner’s death. “Trump, you disgusting, vile, egomaniac loser, child,” White wrote, adding that using someone’s tragic death to “promote your own vanity and fascist authoritarian agenda is a corrupt and narcissistic sin.”
