Taylor Swift removes songs from Trump TikToks after provocative response

Taylor Swift has successfully had the audio from three of her songs removed from TikTok videos posted by accounts affiliated with Donald Trump. The immediate trigger was a video on the Team Trump account showing the American president and his wife Melania watching fireworks, with Swift's 2020 song "August" playing in the background. The caption on that video was practically asking for it: "I'm sure @TaylorSwift is going to be super excited we used her song!" American users noticed on Friday that the audio had disappeared from the video, with a message stating that the rights holder had not made the song available in their country.

"August" was not the only song affected. According to reporting from multiple outlets, an earlier Team Trump video featuring the song "Father Figure," posted in November 2025, has also been silenced. In addition, fans and media have noted that a third video using Swift's song "Opalite" no longer has any audio either. A White House video published on July 4th featuring the song "The Fate of Ophelia" was still available as of Saturday morning, suggesting this is not a blanket block but rather a series of targeted removals.

Why Swift has chosen to take action now is not entirely clear, but the provocative tone of the caption on the "August" video appears to have been the catalyst. The relationship between Swift and Trump has been tense for years. In 2024, Trump shared AI generated images on Truth Social that falsely implied Swift was endorsing him in the presidential election, something he later claimed he had no knowledge of. Swift ultimately endorsed Kamala Harris, after which Trump wrote on social media: "I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT," and suggested she would pay a price for it.

One crucial difference between Swift and many other artists who have objected to Trump using their music is that Swift has full control over both her masters and her publishing rights. Many artists find themselves powerless because the relevant rights are split across record labels, publishers, and other parties that have existing licensing agreements with social platforms. Swift re recorded her first six studio albums under the name "Taylor's Version" specifically to reclaim that control, and it now gives her a direct legal lever to decide how and where her music is used.

Swift is far from the only artist who has clashed with the Trump administration over music use on social media. Ariana Grande spoke out after her song "Bye" was used in a video featuring ICE arrests. Kesha expressed outrage over the use of "Blow" in a military video, and Sabrina Carpenter called an ICE video using her song "Juno" "evil and disgusting." Olivia Rodrigo accused the administration of using her music to promote "racist, hateful propaganda." Before all of this, The Rolling Stones, Adele, Neil Young, Jack White, ABBA, Céline Dion, Foo Fighters, the estate of Isaac Hayes, and Eddy Grant had all previously objected to the unauthorized use of their work by Trump.