Bruce Springsteen Interview: Trump Is A "Toxic Narcissist." "I Think He'll Make The Biggest Mess"

Bruce Springsteen questions Donald Trump's competence

Bruce Springsteen has been candid about his dislike for President-elect Donald Trump before, and the “Born to Run” singer talked at length about his feelings on the upcoming presidency on a new episode of Marc Maron’s WTF podcast.

“I’ve felt disgust before, but never the kind of fear that you feel now,” he said. “It’s as simple as the fear of, is someone simply competent enough to do this particular job? Do they simply have the pure competence to be put in the position of such responsibility?”

Springsteen previously called Trump a “toxic narcissist” in an October interview with the U.K.’s Channel 4 News, where he noted “he does have a lot of people’s ears, and I don’t think he’s going to go quietly, gently into the good night.”

“I think he’s going to make as big a mess as he can, and I don’t know what that’s going to mean,” he continued, “but we’ll find out shortly.”

He echoed that sentiment on the podcast: “I understand how he got elected,” he said before going on to list some reasons — fear of ISIS, fear of job loss — that could have led Americans to vote for Trump, who has talked about what Springsteen calls “very simplistic, but very powerful ideas” in response to those fears.

“There’s plenty of good, solid folks that voted for Donald Trump,” he said, “as well as people who had other agendas.”

Earlier, he touched on that latter group, expressing his concerns about the future of America. “When you let that genie out of the bottle — bigotry, racism, intolerance… they don’t go back in the bottle that easily if they go back in at all,” he said. “Whether it’s a rise in hate crimes, people feeling they have license to speak and behave in ways that previously were considered un-American and are un-American. That’s what he’s appealing to. My fears are that those things find a place in ordinary, civil society.”

But the Boss is not giving up: “America is still America. I’m still believe in its ideals, and I’m going to do my best to play my very, very small part in maintaining those things.”

Hear Springsteen’s full conversation with Maron here.