US President Donald Trump will headline an event commemorating the nation’s 250th anniversary on the National Mall next month, organizers said on Saturday. Several musical performers scheduled to appear in the celebration cancelled, citing concerns about its association with him.
The concerts were planned as the opening ceremony of the Great American State Fair, a 16-day event running from June 25 to July 10, 2026. Organizers said the fair would stretch along the National Mall from the US Capitol to the Washington Monument, featuring concert stages, state pavilions, exhibits, rides, and other attractions.
But the musical lineup has been hit by a series of cancellations. Bret Michaels, lead singer of the rock band Poison, became the fifth performer to withdraw from the concerts on Friday, stating that the event was not the nonpartisan celebration he thought it would be.
Trump is now scheduled to “personally kick off this historic celebration,” Freedom 250 posted on social media. Organizers have not publicly detailed the reasons for the departures, though the exits have raised questions about the viability of the event as originally envisioned.
The group did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. In a post on Truth Social earlier in the day, Trump suggested the concert series may no longer be necessary if performers continue to back out. He floated the possibility of giving a speech on the National Mall instead, portraying himself as a more powerful draw than any musical act.
“The fact is that I am, according to many, the Number One Attraction anywhere in the World,” Trump wrote. “I get much larger audiences than Elvis in his prime and do so without a guitar.”
The president added he was ordering his representatives to look at the feasibility of doing an AMERICA IS BACK Rally. Freedom 250 is a public-private partnership created by the White House to coordinate celebrations of the United States’ 250th anniversary alongside federal agencies.