President Donald Trump’s campaign account is once again locked in a copyright battle with Taylor Swift, after the pop superstar’s music was stripped from multiple TikTok videos posted by his team — and his social media operation responded by doubling down with even more Swift-related trolling. The @TeamTrump TikTok account, which has 14 million followers, posted a video set to Swift’s song “August,” from her 2020 album “Folklore,” featuring the president and first lady viewing fireworks from a balcony.
The post read, “I’m sure @Taylor Swift is going to be super excited we used her song! #taylorswift #maga #august.” Overlaid text on the video declared, “Mood because it’s August and Donald Trump is your president.” Fans noticed on Aug. 7, 2026, that the audio had been pulled from the post. In the US version of TikTok, visitors to the video were met with a message reading: “The copyright owner hasn’t made this sound available in your country.”
Swift’s Fans Celebrate the Copyright Takedown
Swift’s supporters flooded the comment section of the silenced video with celebration. Among the top responses were “TAYLOR REMOVING THE AUDIO QUEEEEEEN,” “TAYLOR QUEEN SWIFT,” and “She removed it, clocked you guys.” Swift has not commented publicly on the matter.
The “August” video was not the only casualty. A separate Team Trump post that used Swift’s song “Father Figure,” posted in November 2025, was also silenced, as was a Team Trump video set to her 2025 track “Opalite.” Taken together, the removals amounted to a sweeping move to shut the president’s team out of her catalog on the platform. Not every video was touched, however. A White House TikTok video from November using “The Fate of Ophelia” still had audio. And one Team Trump video using a version of Swift’s “Red” remained active with audio.
Team Trump Keeps Trolling With ‘Red’ and Parody Tracklist
The Trump social media team responded aggressively to the takedown. After losing the “August” audio, the @TeamTrump account posted a follow-up video using Swift’s song “Red,” accompanied by the message, “Did you know Taylor Swift wrote a whole album about the color of the Republican Party.” The team also posted a screenshot of a doctored version of the “Red” album tracklist, renaming it “Red (Donald Trump’s Version)” and listing altered song titles including “Red (Taylor Swift Wrote A Whole Album About Republicans)” and “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together (The Biden Harris Administration).”
The pattern of using well-known pop music as the backdrop for politically charged content is not new for the Trump administration. Videos detailing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids and others promoting the administration’s military actions in Iran have similarly been set to chart-topping tracks from major artists — a strategy that appears designed to generate controversy and media attention by provoking musicians who publicly oppose the president’s policies.
Other artists have pushed back loudly. Singer Katy Perry objected after her song “Firework” was used over footage of military strikes, writing that seeing her work “weaponized to soundtrack destruction and violence is a complete violation of everything my song stands for.” Singer Ariana Grande was similarly incensed after her music accompanied footage of people detained by federal agents, writing, in a public statement, “Please do not ever use my music in relation to this barbaric, inhumane, heinous nonsense. Fck ice.”
A Years-Long Feud With Deep Roots
The current dispute is merely the latest episode in an ongoing public conflict between Trump and Swift. In September 2024, Trump posted “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!” on his Truth Social platform after Swift endorsed Kamala Harris for president on Instagram. In May 2025, with no apparent provocation, he returned to the subject on Truth Social, writing that since he said he hated Swift, she was “no longer ‘HOT.'” A month before that endorsement, Trump had posted AI-generated images falsely showing Swift endorsing him, including one styled as an Uncle Sam poster. When pressed on whether he feared legal consequences, Trump dismissed the concern, saying the images “were all made up by other people.”
Trump expressed warmer sentiments when news broke of Swift’s upcoming wedding to Travis Kelce, telling reporters, “Well, I wish them a lot of luck. He’s a great player, and I think he’s a great guy, and I think that she’s a terrific person, so I wished them a lot of luck.” That goodwill, however, appears not to have lasted. The continued use of Swift’s catalog — and the mocking parody tracklist — makes plain that the Trump team has no intention of standing down from its online campaign targeting the singer.
Swift, for her part, has let copyright law do the talking. Whether the remaining videos using her music will face similar takedowns remains to be seen, but her silent enforcement has resonated loudly with fans and observers alike as the feud shows no sign of fading.