With Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s marriage celebration at Madison Square Garden in New York thrilling their fans, US President Donald Trump – a longtime critic of the singer – used the moment to try to grab some attention for himself, using Swift’s lyrics and images.
Around 7.30pm local time on July 3, an electronic billboard outside the arena read: “JUST&T MARRIED”, a reference to the couple’s initials.
Not long after, the official White House social media account posted a mock-up of a similar image with a different message: “TRUMP IS YOUR PRESIDENT.” It was captioned: “IT’S HAPPENED!!!”
It was not the first time that the President seemingly nodded to the pop star. On the night of July 2, as a select group of guests descended for a rehearsal dinner at the Garden, the White House posted on its official account an image mirroring the singer’s multicoloured Eras Tour poster, depicting the President along with moments from American history.
“America’s Eras Tour”, it read, along with the caption “It’s been a long time coming”, referencing a lyric from her 2019 song Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince.
On the morning of July 3, the White House again tipped its hat to Swift, posting a video captioned “America’s greatest hits, one era at a time”. The 24-second video was replete with AI-generated images of the founding of the country, as well as some stock imagery of former presidents and the White House itself.
Another short video was posted that same evening and titled “NEXT ON AMERICA’S ERAS TOUR”, and included other American historical moments.
The posts – seemingly landing somewhere between trolling and homage – come as Swift and Trump are both staging major events from July 4 to July 5, amid a sweltering heat wave on the East Coast.
In New York, Swift, 36, is celebrating her marriage to Kelce, the Kansas City Chiefs football superstar who is also 36. In Washington, Trump is planning a self-described “TRUMP RALLY” on the National Mall on July 4, with a speech and the “LARGEST FIREWORKS SHOW IN HISTORY”, including nearly 1 million fireworks over 40 minutes.
Trump and Swift have shadowed each other in the public sphere for years, with Trump often posting negative or angry takes on the singer, including after she endorsed his opponent, Kamala Harris, in 2024. “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!” he wrote.
Swift, who has been outspoken about the need for women’s equality and gay and transgender rights, only rarely directly commented on the President, but she did post in 2020 that she felt he was “stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism” and needed to be voted out. - ©2026 The New York Times Company
