President Donald Trump on Monday went off on a rant about TikTok and how amazing it is because he’s higher on the platform than Taylor Swift.
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“Now, there’s a thing called TikTok. Have you heard of it?” Trump asked supporters in the Oval Office. “I was watching a show this morning, Maria Bartiromo. She’s fantastic. And on her show, they were talking about the dangers of TikTok and, uh, it’s Chinese, you know, a whole thing with spying and what they’re doing with that. Well, except it was announced about two days ago, the new numbers just came out. You know who the number one person in TikTok is by far, Trump. Me. I just got the — I’m number one. Like Taylor Swift was number 11. I’m number one on TikTok by far.”
“And the numbers just came out,” he repeated, “and I said, well, you know, I’m hearing about how they influence. They’re talking about their tremendous danger because the influence. But if they influence so badly, I mean, I’m saying all things like, I love our country. We got to stop communism. We got to do this and that. We’re going to do a lot. We’re doing a lot. But I’m by far, number one, it was sent to me by, you know, the list comes out number one. Number two, I was number one by a lot. So I guess maybe, I don’t know, maybe they’re bad, maybe they’re not.”
TikTok’s algorithm was caught favoring Republican content in 2024, The Guardian reported after a new study was published in May. The “for you” section of TikTok has been found to promote Trump, the study found. That was before Trump’s allies took over the company. The U.S. mandates that owners of media companies be American citizens. So, TikTok was forced to find investors in the U.S. to lead the U.S. version of it. Those who added their names were allies of Trump’s.
After Trump took office, there was a huge surge of artificial-intelligence-generated fake influencers on Tiktok, Instagram and Facebook promoting the president, the New York Times reported in April.
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Trump has been beefing with Swift for years, and it extended to his recent attempt to steal her wedding spotlight over the weekend.
On Friday night, as Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s wedding drew attention to Madison Square Garden, the White House displayed a sign reading “Trump is your president” near the venue’s “JusT&T” announcement.
In 2020, Swift publicly encouraged her supporters to register to vote and vote against Trump. In 2024, she endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump responded on Truth Social with “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!”
It prompted ridicule of Trump, even by the media.
“Even on the happiest day of Taylor Swift’s life, Donald Trump could not resist trolling her,” wrote The Telegraph.
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The Hollywood Reporter called Trump “Swift-sensitive.”
