U.S. President Donald Trump put his executive duties aside on Friday to play the role of music critic, taking shots at two of the biggest stars in pop and rock.
“Has anyone noticed that, since I said ‘I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT,’ she’s no longer ‘HOT?’” Trump wrote on Truth Social Friday morning.
Trump, 81, did not elaborate and it’s unclear what sparked the post.
The president first declared his disdain for Swift, 35, last September, when the music superstar endorsed Democratic candidate Kamala Harris ahead of the U.S. election. In February, Swift’s boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, told the press that having Trump in attendance at the Super Bowl was be a “great honour.”
Less than two hours before Trump took his swipe at the queen of millennial pop music, the president lashed out at the king of boomer rock.
Posting again on Truth Social, Trump called Bruce Springsteen “a pushy, obnoxious JERK,” and described the American music legend as a “‘prune’ of a rocker (his skin is all atrophied!)”
The lengthy rant came days after Springsteen criticized the Trump administration multiple times during a concert with the E Street Band in Manchester.
“In my home, the America I love, the America I’ve written about, that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration,” the Boss told the audience on Wednesday. “Tonight we ask all who believe in democracy and the best of our American experiment to rise with us, raise your voices against authoritarianism and let freedom ring!”
Later in the show, before performing his 2002 song “My City of Ruins,” Springsteen said, “In America the richest men are taking satisfaction in abandoning the world’s poorest children to sickness and death.”
In his Friday response, Trump wrote, “I see that Highly Overrated Bruce Springsteen goes to a Foreign Country to speak badly about the President of the United States. Never liked him, never liked his music, or his Radical Left Politics.”
Trump also criticized Springsteen for his support of former president Joe Biden: “Sleepy Joe didn’t have a clue as to what he was doing, but Springsteen is ‘dumb as a rock,’ and couldn’t see what was going on, or could he (which is even worse!)?”
Neither Swift nor Springsteen have responded to Trump’s posts.
Trump is no stranger to picking fights with celebrities who have criticized him. In 2023, Trump described Rihanna’s Super Bowl performance as “without question, the single worst Halftime Show in Super Bowl history … This after insulting far more than half of our Nation, which is already in serious DECLINE, with her foul and insulting language.”
Dozens of artists have taken issue with Trump’s use of their music during his political campaigns, including Céline Dion, ABBA and Neil Young, who has been a vocal critic of Trump.
When Young became a U.S. citizen in 2020, during Trump’s first term, he wrote an open letter in which he called the president “a disgrace” and “the worst president in the history of our great country.” Last month, Young attended a protest in Los Angeles, where he held up a sign that read, “HANDS OFF CANADA.”
