Grammy-winning musician Jack White has escalated his feud with U.S. President Donald Trump, unleashing a two-page online post calling Trump a “low life fascist.”
The exchange marks one of the sharpest public clashes between a cultural figure and the Trump administration since his return to office.
The conflict began earlier this week when White mocked Trump’s Oval Office makeover.
Highlights
- Jack White called President Trump a 'low life fascist' in a sharp online post amid escalating public feud.
- The White House labelled White a 'washed up, has-been loser,' prompting White to fire back with an 850-word manifesto.
- White also accused Trump of dismantling democracy, kowtowing to dictators, and promoting division and fascism.
The feud between Jack White and Donald Trump became nuclear after White called Trump a ‘low life fascist’
Image credits: Leon Neal/Getty Images
Sharing a photo from Trump’s August 18 meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the former White Stripes frontman called the new gold-laden décor “vulgar” and compared it to a “professional wrestler’s dressing room.”
The White House responded with Communications Director Steven Cheung blasting White as a “washed up, has-been loser” who is “masquerading as a real artist.”
White fired back on Instagram on Wednesday with an 850-word anti-Trump manifesto that quoted Cheung’s insult.
“‘Masquerading as a real artist’? Thank you for giving me my tombstone engraving! Well here’s my opinion, Trump is masquerading as a human,” he wrote.
Image credits: Jack White/Instagram
“He’s masquerading as a Christian, as a leader, as a person with actual empathy,” White said.
“He’s been masquerading as a businessman for decades as nothing he’s involved in has prospered except by using other people’s money to find loophole after loophole and grift after grift.”
White also attacked Cheung and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, calling them “professional liar toadies” and accusing them of “covering up and masking [Trump’s] fascism as patriotism and fomenting hatred and division in this country on a daily basis.”
White also attacked Cheung and Leavitt, calling them liars
Image credits: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
He added that being insulted directly by the White House was “a badge of honor.”
White’s post catalogued a wide range of controversies surrounding Trump.
He cited Trump’s friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and what White called Trump’s “obvious wimpy and pathetic kowtowing to the dictators Putin and Kim Jong Un.”
He labeled Trump an “orange grifter” and “professional golf cheat” who offered “only smoke and mirrors and tax breaks for the ultra wealthy.”
The 50-year-old musician, who has campaigned for Bernie Sanders in past elections, insisted that his criticism was not partisan but human.
Image credits: Jack White/Instagram
“I’m not a Democrat either I’m a human being raised in Detroit,” he wrote, adding that he could not remain silent in the face of what he compared to the rise of fascism in 1930s Germany.
“This man is a danger to not just America but the entire world and that’s not an exaggeration, he’s dismantling democracy and endangering the planet on a daily basis,” White said.
“I was raised to believe that we defeated fascism in World War II and that we would never allow it again in the world.”
White also aimed his message at Trump’s supporters, saying, “He ain’t spending any money on helping YOU unless you fit into his white supremascist [sic] country club rich idiot agenda. Wow, he hates who you hate....good for you, be proud of yourselves, how christian of you all.”
White further accused Trump of dismantling democracy
Image credits: The White House/Flickr
In another passage, he said, “How funny that it wasn’t me calling out Trump’s blatant fascist manipulation of government, his gestapo ICE tactics, his racist remarks about Latinos, Native Americans, etc,” but that it was the “decor of the Oval Office remarks” that got the White House to respond.
“How petty and pathetic and thin-skinned could this administration get?” White asked.
Cheung earlier responded to White, saying, “Jack White is a washed up, has-been loser posting drivel on social media because he clearly has ample time on his hands due to his stalled career.”
Image credits: Scott Heins/Getty Images
“It’s apparent he’s been masquerading as a real artist, because he fails to appreciate, and quite frankly disrespects, the splendor and significance of the Oval Office inside of ‘The People’s House.’”
Despite that claim, White continues to remain active in music. His 2024 album No Name earned a Grammy nomination, and he is scheduled to headline New York’s CBGB Festival next month alongside Iggy Pop and the Sex Pistols.
White closed his post with a quote from Theodore Roosevelt: treating a president as above criticism, he wrote, is “morally treasonable to the American public.”