Carrie Underwood to sing ‘America the Beautiful’ at Trump inauguration

Carrie Underwood will sing “America the Beautiful” at the inauguration ceremony just before President-elect Donald J. Trump is sworn in next week. His representatives and the Trump-Vance inaugural committee confirmed the news Monday.

“I love our country and am honored to have been invited to sing at the inauguration and to be a small part of this historic event,” Underwood said in a statement. “I am honored to answer this call at a time when we must all come together in a spirit of unity and look to the future.”

The inaugural festivities will take place in Washington, DC, on January 20, which coincidentally coincides with Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Underwood will be accompanied in her performance of the standard by the Armed Forces Choir and the United States Naval Academy Glee Club.

Underwood is a far more high-profile star than Team Trump was able to secure for his 2017 inauguration, at a time when he was more shunned by entertainment bigwigs and big media companies than it seems. t be 2024. When he was sworn in, “America’s Got Talent” finalist Jackie Evancho was the biggest name on board.

Classical crossover singer Christopher D. Macchio is also on the schedule to perform an anonymous “musical selection” just before JD Vance is sworn in as vice president.

News of Underwood’s performance immediately ignited a firestorm on social media, with conservatives applauding his willingness to perform at the ceremony and some Democratic fans taking a darker view — and the Daily Beast welcomed the reports with the headline: “Carrie Underwood comes out as MAGA with Trump inauguration concert.”

But regardless of how important this inaugural appearance may be to others, Underwood will likely maintain the publicly apolitical status she has always maintained in the past. Social media users took note of this during the 2021 pandemic, when his account appeared to “like” a tweet from Matt Walsh opposing mask mandates in schools. (“Like everyone else, I’m upset and disturbed that Carrie Underwood liked one of my tweets,” Walsh said in a sarcastic tweet at the time. “I demand she renounce me and (apologies.”) Much further back, in 2012, she angered some conservatives when she was quoted as affirming same-sex relationships, which she later presented as a spur-of-the-moment aside in an interview, and not a planned statement.

These possible and passing exceptions aside, Underwood has kept his opinions on politics and virtually all hot-button issues confidential. “I feel like more and more people are trying to pin me politically,” she said in a 2019 interview with the Guardian. “I try to stay away from politics though possible, at least in public, because no one wins. It’s crazy. Everyone’s trying to sum it all up and put a bow on it, like it’s black and white. And it’s not like that.