As long as people continue to “heart” radio, there will be an iHeartRadio festival at which they can revel in their shared affection for the medium. And as long as U2 continues to play together as a band, it will find a way to work politics into its performances. Such was the case at this year’s iHeartRadio celebration, which featured Good Charlotte and Cold War Kids, bands you might have last heard on your car stereo before it was replaced with SiriusXM. Drake and U2 headlined the Las Vegas show, and both acts championed love in the wake of the latest police shootings of unarmed black men. But Bono couldn’t resist getting in a dig at GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump.
U2’s “Desire” performance was accompanied by a sample of Trump asking black and Latinx voters what do they have to lose by voting for him. (It’s no “The Playboy Mansion,” but it’ll do.) Bono posed this question to the nation, and replied with “everything.” The frontman also urged the audience in America’s bettingest city to get out and vote, just as soon as the action cools at the blackjack tables.