A TikTok video posted by President Trump’s campaign account has lost its audio track after featuring Taylor Swift’s song “August” in a clip celebrating his presidency. Neither Ms. Swift’s representatives nor the Trump campaign has said what caused the removal.
The video, posted to the @TeamTrump account, shows Mr. Trump and first lady Melania Trump watching fireworks from a balcony, overlaid with text reading, “Mood because it’s August and Donald Trump is your president.” Its caption taunted the pop star directly: “I’m sure @Taylor Swift is going to be super excited we used her song! #taylorswift #maga #august.”
By Friday evening, fans noticed the audio was gone. U.S. users who pulled up the post instead saw a message reading, “The copyright owner hasn’t made this sound available in your country.” One top comment read: “TAYLOR REMOVING THE AUDIO QUEEEEEEN.”
It’s not the first time a Team Trump TikTok soundtracked by Ms. Swift has lost its audio. A video featuring her song “Father Figure,” posted in November, was muted the same way; JustJared reports that video has since been taken down entirely, though that detail is not independently confirmed elsewhere. A separate video set to her track “Opalite” reportedly suffered the same audio removal. Not every Swift needle-drop has been touched, though — a Team Trump post using her song “Red,” reworked with pro-GOP captions, still had sound as of Friday, and a White House TikTok soundtracked by “The Fate of Ophelia” remains untouched.
The muted “August” clip is the latest flashpoint in a yearslong public rift between the two. Ms. Swift endorsed then-Vice President Kamala Harris in September 2024, writing in an Instagram post that Ms. Harris “fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion.” Mr. Trump responded on social media, “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!”
The dispute traces back further still. A month before the endorsement, Mr. Trump shared AI-generated images falsely suggesting Ms. Swift had endorsed him, including one depicting her as Uncle Sam with the caption, “Taylor wants you to vote for Donald Trump.” Asked in a Fox Business interview whether he worried Ms. Swift might sue over the fabricated images, Mr. Trump was unconcerned, saying, “These were all made up by other people.”
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