Former President Donald Trump used to be a Swiftie. More recently, there is trouble between the two of them.
On Sunday, Trump took to his Truth Social platform to issue an all caps declaration: “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!”
However, all the way back in the Before Times of 2015 — when Swift was just a regular pop star rather than a billion dollar enterprise and Trump was just beginning his first presidential campaign — things were very different. In November of that year, your humble TPM correspondent was working for Yahoo News and I landed a lengthy interview with Trump at his Manhattan campaign headquarters. At that time, Trump was willing and eager to hold forth on pretty much anything and, I closed the conversation with something of a game where I had Trump do word association with various political figures and celebrities.
His one word for Taylor Swift? “Terrific.”
So, what sent Trump from admiration of Swift to the Tortured Poster’s Department? In an email to TPM on Monday, the Trump campaign Senior Communications Director Steven Cheung offered a simple explanation for Trump’s change of heart when it comes to Swift.
“Because she’s now endorsing a candidate in Kamala Harris who is hell-bent on destroying this country and weaponizing the justice system to go after her political opponent, President Trump,” Cheung said.
Swift, who backed President Joe Biden over Trump in the 2020 election, announced her endorsement of Trump’s rival in the current race, Vice President Kamala Harris, following the pair’s debate earlier this month. In the Instagram post where she revealed her decision, Swift, who has supported a variety of liberal causes, cited Harris’ support for abortion and LGBT rights.
Representatives for Swift did not respond to requests for comment on this story.
Back in 2015, when I played word association with Trump, he suggested I should make that my thing for future interviews. He was probably right about that.
Our conversation was also notable because it showed how many of the more extreme elements of Trump’s approach to politics were there from the very beginning. During the discussion, before he praised Swift, Trump suggested the GOP should simply “take” his lower performing rivals out of the primary. He also declared that, under him, “security is going to rule” and demonized migrants as a terror threat. At the time, the conversation made headlines because Trump didn’t rule out the idea of placing Muslims in a database or giving them special identification cards.
“We’re going to have to look at a lot of things very closely,” Trump said, adding, “We’re going to have to look at the mosques. We’re going to have to look very, very carefully.”
As president, Trump went on to issue executive orders that banned people from Muslim majority countries entering the U.S. In his current campaign, Trump and his running mate have continued to focus on painting immigrants as a threat to the American way of life.
In conclusion, over the past decade, Trump’s approach to demonizing immigrants may be the same, but his thoughts on music have changed. And when it comes to Taylor Swift, it seems safe to say that she and Trump are never, ever, ever getting back together.
Like ever.
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