Martina McBride, Bret Michaels and more pulled out of the June festival

NEED TO KNOW

• Donald Trump will now headline the Great American State Fair, with an opening event scheduled for June 24
• The news comes after half of the original musical acts dropped out of the festival lineup after many learned of the event’s ties to Trump
• Trump called to cancel the concerts and replace them with a rally on Truth Social, before his involvement was officially confirmed

A large group of musical artists pulled out of an upcoming concert series celebrating America's 250th birthday. Now, President Donald Trump will headline instead.

A lineup of nine performers was originally set to take the stage next month throughout the Great American State Fair on the National Mall, Freedom 250, a group Trump created by executive order to organize administration events like the birthday festivities, announced earlier this week.

However, over half of the musical acts have since dropped off the bill after Freedom 250 revealed the artists for the 16-day festival, occurring from June 25 through July 10.

A majority of the acts — including Martina McBride, Young MC, C+C Music Factory, Bret Michaels, The Commodores and Morris Day & The Time — have said that they did not realize the event and organizing group had ties to Trump, 79.

As of Sunday, May 31, just three artists are left of the original lineup: Vanilla Ice, Milli Vanilli and Flo Rida.

In the wake of the shakeup, Trump has called to cancel the Great American State Fair altogether, and even agreed to take over as the headlining act.

“I understand Artists are getting ‘the yips' having to do with their performance on Wednesday, so I am thinking about bringing the Number One Attraction anywhere in the World,” the president wrote in a Truth Social post on May 30, referring to himself.

Trump then said in the post he was “ordering my Representatives to look at the feasibility” of doing a rally in place of live music. Danielle Alvarez, an adviser for Freedom 250, later confirmed to The Washington Post on May 31 that Trump will now kick off the opening event for the festival.

The president will take the stage on Wednesday, June 24, the day before the first musical act, McBride, was set to perform at the event, according to the Post.

A Freedom 250 spokesperson did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment on May 31.

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In his Truth Social post shared before Freedom 250 confirmed his attendance, Trump referred to himself as "the man who gets much larger audiences than Elvis in his prime, and he does so without a guitar," as well as "the man who loves our Country more than anyone else, and the man who some say is the Greatest President in History (THE GOAT!)."

He added that we would "take the place of these highly paid, Third Rate ‘Artists,' and give a major speech, rallying the Country forward like I have done ever since being President!”

He then slammed the music acts who dropped out of the event in a different Truth Social post later that same day.

“We should have a giant MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN RALLY, for 250, instead of having overpriced singers, who nobody wants to hear, whose music is boring, and yet who do nothing but complain,” Trump wrote.

He went on to call for a cancellation of the musical performances, while claiming that he “canceled” his involvement in the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in the wake of a federal judge's ruling that his name was illegally added to the cultural center.

“Cancel it,” he wrote of the Great American State Fair concerts, “just like I canceled my involvement with the failing and unsafe to be in Kennedy Center, because a Highly Conflicted, Crooked Federal Judge, said that I should not be allowed to spend my time and money in order to MAKE THE CENTER GREAT AGAIN, actually, far greater than it ever was before!”

An anonymous senior administration official described the concert rollout to The New York Times as “a mess."

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