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Folk music legend Joan Baez has shared a striking message about the current state of US politics and those currently in charge of the country.
The trailblazing singer and civil rights activist, who was played by Monica Barbaro in the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, made the comments during an appearance on the season premiere of Netflix’s Everybody’s Live With John Mulaney.
The 84-year-old was joined on the debut episode of the talk show’s second season by Michael Keaton, Fred Armisen, Jessica Roy and musical guests Cypress Hill. At the start of her appearance, Baez said she needed to “set the context” for why she was there.
“You said I could say anything I want out here,” Baez said to Mulaney. “We’re all here to be silly and have fun, and as long as we recognise the fact that our democracy is going up in flames… we’re being run by a bunch of really incompetent billionaires.” Her statement was met with applause from the studio audience.
Baez never directly named either Donald Trump or Elon Musk but she was more than likely referring to the current US president and the Tesla CEO. Musk now runs the Department of Government Efficiency, which has been slashing federally funded programmes since its inception in January.
Baez didn’t stop there with her Musk references. She revealed that her assistant had told her to buy a Tesla, but she managed to crash it within minutes of getting behind the steering wheel.
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“I hated that thing,” Baez said. “But I thought I was supposed to like it. So I drove off in it. Within 45 minutes, I had smashed it into an oak tree on my property. I was thinking, ‘That’s a sign.’”
Baez supported Kamala Harris during the 2024 US election – and even altered the lyrics of “America the Beautiful” to show solidarity with the Democratic nominee. In the moving pared-back rendition, she changed the original lyrics of “Crown thy good with brotherhood” to “Crown thy good with sisterhood”.
She captioned the clip: “Times are a-changin’… Let’s crown thy good good with sisterhood. Register to vote at vote.org or headcount.org and VOTE BLUE!”
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Speaking to The Independent in May 2024, Baez shared her dark sense of humour when talking about climate change and Trump.
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She said: “No matter how many of us tried to make people aware, it’s caught up with us. Mother Earth is in a rage, and you really can’t blame her. I don’t want to have my life dictated by fear, but sometimes it’s just overwhelming to wake up at night and think ‘What, if anything, is there going to be for my granddaughter?’
“Possibly nothing? We may be gone. I have a really black joke that I made up: we will be lucky if we get eliminated by climate change, because then Trump won’t have time to set up death camps. It’s pretty awful, but it’s true.”
