Donald Trump’s J6 National Anthem mashup
Former President Donald Trump does not usually play the national anthem when he appears at rallies around the country. Trump enters the arena to the strains of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA.” He walks around the stage, soaking up his fans’ enthusiasm and support, and begins his remarks when the song finishes.
The former president did things a little differently at his first campaign rally of the 2024 campaign on Saturday evening in Waco, Texas.
Trump’s 757 — “Trump Force One” — was parked behind the stage, forming the backdrop for the speech at Waco Regional Airport. When “God Bless the USA” began, Trump appeared in the doorway of the plane and slowly walked down the steps to the stage as the crowd cheered.
This time, when “God Bless the USA” finished, Trump did not walk up to the microphone to start his speech. Instead, he stood near the podium as an announcer said: “Ladies and gentlemen, please rise and place your hand over your heart for the No. 1 song on iTunes, Amazon and the Billboard charts — ‘Justice for All,’ featuring President Donald J. Trump and the J6 choir.” Trump placed his hand over his heart and stood at attention.
The “No. 1 song” is the national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” with a twist. It begins with an ominous-sounding synthesizer chord, and then a chorus of men singing the anthem’s first words: O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming … Then the voices stop, the synthesizer returns, and Trump’s recorded voice begins the Pledge of Allegiance: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America … Then the pledge stops and the singing returns: Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming … And then Trump’s voice again: And to the republic for which it stands …
And so on. In Waco, the song was accompanied by a video of scenes of Washington, D.C., the American flag and Trump’s presidency, interspersed with pictures of men in orange prison jumpsuits. When the national anthem got to the words, And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air, the video switched to pictures of rioters fighting with police at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Then, as the anthem continued, the video turned to more scenes from Trump’s time in the White House. It ends with the singers chanting “USA! USA! USA!” and a slide that says: SUPPORTING CERTAIN PRISONERS DENIED THEIR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS.
“That song tells you a lot,” Trump said when the video finished, “because it’s No. 1 in every single category. Number 2 was Taylor Swift, No. 3 was Miley Cyrus. So we have our moment, and that tells you that our people love those people. They love those people.” The reference to “those people” was apparently to some number of accused or convicted Jan. 6 rioters.
What to make of that? Well, first of all, the national anthem is a durable song. Just go to sports events and political conventions and you’ll hear it performed, and sometimes mangled, in a million different ways. There are some really bad versions of “The Star-Spangled Banner” out there. It is fortunate that most of them cover only the first verse.
But what Trump did was different. Like something played by a club DJ in the early 2000s, “Justice for All” is a mashup — in this case, of the national anthem and Trump reciting the pledge. Trump recorded his part earlier this year at Mar-a-Lago, his home in Florida.