Former Pink Floyd leader Roger Waters received positive reaction after a passionate outburst regarding Donald Trump and the state of the U.S. in New York City this week.

Rolling Stone reported that an invited audience, mostly media, voiced its approval as he slammed the president as a “tyrant” and “mass destroyer” following a screening of his movie Us + Them.

“We’re living here in a fool’s hell,” Waters said. “The United States of America is not a fool’s paradise, it’s a fool’s hell.” He added that the movie reminded him that “the great battle is the battle between propaganda and love. And propaganda is winning. And sadly, the buttons of the propaganda machine are being pushed by people who are fucking sick. These [are] sick, sociopathic fuckers, all of them, every single one of them.”

He specifically targeted Trump as "a man who has failed at fucking everything in his life except becoming the biggest … tyrant and mass murderer and mass destroyer of everything that any of us might love or cherish in the whole [world], only because he has the power. Unfortunately, he has his finger on the button on it, and he’s right. In [the Pink Floyd song] ‘Pigs,’ when we put up that he has a bigger button and it works, it does. And it’s working all over the world, murdering brown people for profit.”

Hinting that the upcoming This Is Not a Drill shows would reflect the sentiments he’s expressed, Waters explained that he considered abandoning the classic Floyd song “Wish You Were Here” before thinking again. "Actually, I really like the song,” he said.

Referring to the line “Did you exchange a walk-on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?” he noted, "yes, we did exchange a walk-on role in the war for a lead role in the cage. We all live in a fucking cage, and it is a walk-on role. And it won’t become the opposite of that — which is to not remain enslaved — until we all, we the people, say, ‘No, this is fucking bullshit.’ … Obviously, somehow they’ve managed to convince enough of us that this is a good idea that we’re prepared to support it.”

Waters has berated Trump on a number of occasions, calling him the “epitome of anything that can be considered bad” in 2015; expressing hopes that the president would be removed from office in 2017; and using the Scots slang word “bawbag” to describe him in 2018.

The This Is Not a Drill tour kicks off in Pittsburgh on July 8 and ends in Mexico City on Oct. 7.

 

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