The White House is once again trying to provoke Taylor Swift.
On Wednesday, the official White House TikTok account posted a new video of Donald Trump glad-handing around with Swift’s 2021 vault “I Bet You Think About Me” as the soundtrack. “We know you think about us,” read the caption, referencing the track’s lyrics. Within a few hours, the song was quietly muted and removed from the video, although it remains available in other clips and as a sound on TikTok.
It’s the latest video antagonising the pop superstar in what has become an ongoing saga. Days before, on Aug. 8, Swift removed her song “August” from a post by the Team Trump TikTok account, Trump’s official campaign page. “I’m sure Taylor Swift is going to be super excited we used her song,” that video’s caption read. After Swift removed “August,” she also muted other songs that were featured in past videos posted by the Team Trump account last fall.
@whitehouse We know you think about us 🤭
Since Trump took office during his second term, he and his administration have been using social media as part of their communication strategy. The propaganda-like, rage-bait-style clips often lean into internet culture and use popular music to make light of Trump’s most egregious actions, like his immigration policy and foreign policy. To date, the videos that used Swift’s songs have solely focused on painting the president, and his wife, in a positive light.
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Notably, Swift has not issued a statement about the song removals following in the footsteps of Bad Bunny, who recently dealt with the same issue when the White House employed his track “La Mudanza” in a particularly tone-deaf video. A few days later, the song was muted on that sole video without comment from Bad Bunny. Since then, Trump-affiliated social media accounts have not attempted to use the Puerto Rican superstar’s music in videos again.
From Rolling Stone US
