Ireland’s Bono: ‘The American Taxpayer Is Really Hurting’ — But Can Still Help Pay for Europe’s Refugee Crisis

Tuesday on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, U2 frontman and anti-poverty activist Bono called for the U.S. to send more assistance to Europe to shore up the European Union as it buckles under the Third World migrant crisis, even though Americans are struggling to bear their own tax burdens.

“I know the American taxpayer is really hurting at the moment and the same in Europe,” Bono said. “But I think between Europe and America there is a consensus building that, you know, the corruption that’s killing as many kids as disease can be dealt with by structuring these concessional loans on the conditions that these countries that we give them to reform.”

Bono’s MSNBC segment was meant to draw attention to his upcoming testimony Tuesday before a U.S. Senate subcommittee, where he is expected to discuss violent extremism and the role of foreign assistance.

In a recent New York Times op-ed, the ONE Campaign co-founder called the migrant crisis “the worst crisis of forced displacement since World War II… the refugees, and the countries where they’re living, need more humanitarian support.”

Bono acknowledged America’s stagnant economy, but continued to encourage the need for more U.S. cash to assist the European Union’s effort to solve the migrant crisis.

“The refugee crisis places an existential threat on European unity,” Bono said on MSNBC. “I’m a great fan of America, the America of big ideas. America itself is a big idea, and I think you are more American when you show that strength and smartness.”

Bono’s call for more American aid in the Middle East and Europe came on the same day that anti-American billionaire George Soros warned that the European Union will face irreparable damage if “surge funding” is not enacted immediately.

Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @jeromeehudson