Jason Aldean dedicates a controversial attack to Trump after the assassination

July 16, 2024

Jason Aldean dedicated his controversial hit “Try That in a Small Town” to his “friend” Donald Trump following the assassination attempt on the former president at his recent rally in Pennsylvania.

The 47-year-old country singer and vocal Trump supporter performed in Nashville, Tennessee, on Saturday (July 13), hours after Trump was wounded by one of eight shots fired by 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks.

“President Trump is a friend of mine, so I want to send him this next song,” Aldean told the crowd.

Referring to the upcoming 2024 presidential election, he added: “We all know what’s going to happen in November, so it’s all good.”

“It just goes to show that there’s a lot of bullshit in the world, and that’s what this song is about, so this one goes out to the president,” Aldean said before launching into the song “2023.”

The song, released in May last year, sparked an uproar among listeners after Aldean released the accompanying music video, which showed images of fights between protesters and police.

The song was called “racist” and a “lynching anthem” after critics learned that the music video was filmed outside the Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee, where 18-year-old black teenager Henry Choate was lynched in 1927.

Jason Aldean sent his “friend”, former President Donald Trump, a song (Getty Images)

In a later interview, Aldean defended the hit – which was quickly removed from rotation on Country Music Television – saying that he “didn’t say anything in the song that wasn’t true.”

“Country music is working man’s music, man, it’s for the average person. I have eyes, I can see what’s going on,” he said. “I don’t care what side of the political fence you want to be on.”

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The musician said critics had “made the song and the video into something they are not,” adding: “If you have any common sense, you can watch the video and realize that I’m not saying anything that isn’t true.”

Aldean is not the only country artist to take the stage to address the Trump assassination attempt.

His country colleague Cody Johnson interrupted his concert in Chicago on Saturday to speak about the “disgusting” incident.

“The fact that an American citizen believes that what he did today would solve a problem in this country is absolutely disgusting. If you want to solve a problem in this country, go out there on Election Day and vote for whoever you want,” Johnson told the audience.

“Because before most of you were born, an American soldier died so that you have the right to disagree with someone else,” he said.

“I’m tired of the hate. I’m tired of the division. I’m tired of people talking about Trump and Biden,” Johnson continued. “There are people in this crowd who agree with Trump. There are people in this crowd who agree with Biden… That’s your God-given American right to believe what you want.”

In his first interview after the shooting, Trump commented on the incident and said he “should be dead.”

“The doctor at the hospital said he had never seen anything like it, he called it a miracle,” he said The New York Post. “I shouldn’t be here. I should be dead. I should be dead.”

Follow our live blog to stay up to date on the aftermath of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.