Sandler hosted, Trump roasted.<\/p>\n
The White House went into Taylor Swift<\/a> overdrive on Friday, posting a meme appropriating the Swift-Travis Kelce<\/a>\u00a0wedding<\/a>\u00a0at Madison Square Garden<\/a>.<\/p>\n In\u00a0an Instagram post Friday evening<\/a>, the White House parodied the Garden\u2019s purple digital billboard of Swift and Kelce\u2019s \u201cJUST&T Married\u201d by replacing it with the message \u201cTrump Is Your President,\u201d alongside similar text of \u201cIt\u2019s happened!\u201d \u2014 an addition that makes sense only if you think about it for fewer than two seconds.<\/p>\n The post follows one from Thursday night in which<\/a>\u00a0a collage of all-American images like Iwo\u00a0Jima and the Miracle on Ice are dominated by an image of Trump,\u00a0beneath the caption of \u201cAmerica\u2019s Eras Tour,\u201d parodying Swift\u2019s poster for the 2023 concert behemoth. It even included Taylor\u2019s \u201cIt\u2019s a long time coming line\u201d from that barnstorm.<\/p>\n The specter of a wedding<\/a> on a national holiday seemed to rankle a Swift-sensitive president: The White House on Friday also posted two videos to X montage-ing moments in American history with some repurposing of Swift. One\u00a0proclaimed<\/a>\u00a0\u201cNext in America\u2019s Eras Tour\u201d while another\u00a0touted<\/a>\u00a0\u201cAmerica\u2019s greatest hits, one era at a time.\u201d<\/p>\n Compared to some of the other celebrity tolls Trump has engaged in \u2014 just this week he\u00a0posted<\/a>\u00a0an AI video of himself as a doctor treating Julia Roberts and Robert De Niro for \u201cTrump Derangement Syndrome\u201d \u2014 this proved to be pretty tame and even had an air of grudging blessing. There\u2019s a reason for that.\u00a0<\/p>\n Trolling liberal movie stars is a risk-free bet for the president and an easy score with his base. Going after Swift, however, requires more of a shadowbox for Trump, who knows that plenty of people in swing states where he is backing candidates look up to her and her liberal views, and that a war with her could turn out a vote against him. That\u2019s why he has said he wishes the couple well (but also predicted they would not last).<\/p>\n While it may or may not have been intentional, Swift\u2019s choice of a grand, musician-heavy affair on a July 4 weekend that Trump had imagined for his own concert ambitions also may have landed as an affront. The president had planned on a big Freedom 250 concert but soon saw even musicians like Martina McBride and Bret Michaels \u2014 hardly progressive firebrands \u2014\u00a0drop out<\/a>\u00a0because they didn\u2019t want to be associated with the partisan celebration.<\/p>\n Meanwhile at the Garden Friday Stevie Nicks<\/a> and Paul McCartney were planning to<\/a> take the stage alongside the nation\u2019s biggest pop star. And in front of a\u00a0who\u2019s-who of liberal entertainers<\/a>, in what will surely be the world\u2019s first pop concert to feature a wedding pronouncement <\/a>from Billy Madison.<\/p>\n Swift seems to have an unusual ability to get to Trump, free rent, living in his mind.\u00a0After Trump in 2024 posted a deepfake of Swift endorsing him over Kamala Harris, she clarified that she didn\u2019t do that, prompting him to post: \u201cI HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n While she\u2019s been largely quiet this term, Swift did speak out strongly against Trump during the height of BLM protests in 2020, accusing him of \u201cstoking the fires of white supremacy and racism your entire presidency\u201d and vowing he would be voted out in the fall. Trump responded with a series of comments how he liked her less and less; he would later say that her liberal views would cause her to \u201cpay a price\u2026in the marketplace,\u201d a sum she does not seem to be expending.<\/p>\n Ironically, Swift\u2019s 1,000-person wedding, with musical performances involving the host on a grand arena stage, is exactly the kind of spectacle Trump might appreciate if he oversaw it.<\/p>\n Of course, the fact that he\u2019s not could be exactly what rankles.<\/p>\n