BOOM! Barbra Streisand Just Set the Internet on Fire — and Washington

Barbra Streisand’s TIME Magazine Thunderbolt: An 83-Year-Old Icon Just Delivered the Sharpest Political Warning of 2025

She has sung for presidents, directed Oscar winners, and sold 150 million records, but nothing Barbra Streisand has ever done hit quite like the six-minute video embedded in the new TIME Magazine cover story.

At 83, sitting in a simple cream sweater in her Malibu living room, the legend looked straight into the camera and spoke with the quiet ferocity of someone who has seen every chapter of America’s story.

“We need to wake up — kindness isn’t weakness, and silence isn’t peace,” she said.

Then, without raising her voice, she dropped the line already being called “the quote of the decade”: “If someone loves power more than they love people, they shouldn’t be leading them.”

Washington heard it. The internet detonated. And history took note.

The interview was never meant to be a political grenade — until Streisand made it one.

TIME’s annual “Voices of the Year” issue originally profiled her for the upcoming memoir sequel and Broadway return. Yet when the conversation turned to the state of the nation, Streisand refused gentle nostalgia. She spoke of friends afraid to put up yard signs, of rising hate crimes, of leaders who “perform outrage instead of solving pain.” Her delivery was pure Streisand — measured, musical, almost maternal — but the words cut like a Yentl monologue sharpened into a blade.

“This country doesn’t need idols or saviors,” she continued. “It needs people brave enough to speak the truth — and willing to help.”