Pearl Jam poster depicts Trump's corpse, burning White House
A poster for a recent Pearl Jam concert has sparked outrage for depicting the corpse of President Donald Trump.
Pearl Jam defended their concert poster, which depicted a bald eagle pecking at President Trump’s corpse as the White House burns, as an expression of free speech.
"The role of the artist is to make people think and feel, and the current administration has us thinking and feeling," the band’s bassist Jeff Ament said in an emailed statement to the Associated Press on Wednesday. "I was the sole conceptualist of this poster, and I welcome all interpretations and discourse."
He signed it, "Love, from the First Amendment, Jeff Ament."
The poster was from a “get out the vote” concert on Monday in Missoula, Montana, for Democratic Sen. Jon Tester.
Ament, along with artist Bobby Draws Skullz, created the poster to promote that show. It included imagery of the White House on fire, and both the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial broken down and cracked.
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The artwork also included an image of Trump’s body being picked at by a bald eagle as it reaches for a briefcase that appears to have the communist symbol of a hammer and sickle on it.
Tester, on the poster, is depicted as flying above the chaos in a tractor. His opponent, Montana Senate Republican candidate Matt Rosendale, is shown with a lobster claw and holding a sign that reads “Maryland’ – both digs at Rosendale being a native of the U.S. Northeast.
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A number of Republicans on Wednesday condemned the poster by the band including Rosendale who said it was “disgusting and reprehensible” and called on Tester to denounce the banner.
Tester’s officials said the campaign had nothing to do with the poster.
Fox News’ Tyler McCarthy and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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