Guns N’ Roses subtly mock Trump with ‘Live N’ Let Die With COVID 45’ shirt

Guns N’ Roses seemed to take a subtle jab at President Trump and his response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic with new merchandise the rock group began selling Wednesday.

The band’s latest offering is a T-shirt that references COVID-19, the potentially deadly contagious disease caused by the novel coronavirus, and “Live and Let Die,” a song that earned the group a Grammy nomination decades earlier, on the heels of a recent occurrence involving both the tune and Mr. Trump.

Footage captured as the 45th president visited Honeywell’s mask-making facility in Arizona earlier this month showed a maskless Mr. Trump touring the factory while “Live and Let Die” could be heard loudly playing inside the plant.

Guns N’ Roses’ latest shirt reads simply: “LIVE N’ LET DIE WITH COVID 45.”

The shirts are $25 each and available for preorder through the group’s website, which says that 100% of net proceeds will be donated to MusiCares, a relief fund benefiting people within the music community affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

First recorded by the band Wings, the original version of “Live and Let Die” served as the theme song to the 1973 James Bond film of the same name starring Roger Moore.

Guns N’ Roses included their rendition on “Use Your Illusion 1” in 1991, and the song was subsequently nominated for a Grammy Award in 1993 in the category of Best Hard Rock Performance.

More recently, Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose sparred last week on Twitter with Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin over the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. The “Sweet Child O’ Mine” singer called Mr. Mnuchin an expletive, prompting the treasury secretary to fire back: “What have you done for the country lately?”

“[U]like this admin I’m not responsible for 70k+ deaths n’ unlike u I don’t hold a fed gov position of responsibility 2 the American people n’ go on TV tellin them 2 travel the US during a pandemic,” Mr. Rose replied in part.