Donald Trump is a fan of Taylor Swift‘s appearance, but not so much her politics. As for her music? He’s pretty indifferent.
The twice-impeached former U.S. president shared his thoughts on the pop star in a new book titled Apprentice in Wonderland: How Donald Trump and Mark Burnett Took America Through the Looking Glass, an excerpt of which Variety published Monday (June 10). “I think she’s beautiful — very beautiful!” he says of Swift in the snippet. “I find her very beautiful.”
“I think she’s liberal,” the ex-POTUS continued in conversation with Variety co-editor-in-chief Ramin Setoodeh, who wrote the book. “She probably doesn’t like Trump. I hear she’s very talented. I think she’s very beautiful, actually — unusually beautiful!”
As Trump has clearly noticed, Swift has been open for years about her left-leaning political views. She first broke her decade-plus-long silence on the matter about two years after the 77-year-old reality star-turned-politician was elected to the White House in 2016, endorsing Tennessee Democratic candidates Phil Bredesen for Senate and Jim Cooper for House of Representatives in a 2018 Instagram post.
When asked about the endorsement at the time, the then-president told reporters, “Let’s just say I like Taylor’s music about 25% less now, OK?” Bredesen ended up losing to Republican Marsha Blackburn — whom Swift called “Trump in a wig” in her 2020 Netflix film Miss Americana — while Cooper kept his seat.
“She is liberal, or is that just an act?” Trump, who is currently awaiting sentencing after being found guilty of 34 charges of falsifying business records last month, asked Setoodeh in the new interview. “She’s legitimately liberal? It’s not an act? It surprises me that a country star can be successful being liberal.”
Finally, when asked about the “Anti-Hero” singer’s music, Trump simply replied, “Don’t know it well.”
Billboard has reached out Taylor Swift’s representatives for comment.
The interview — which took place in November 2023 — isn’t the only time Trump has spoken about Swift in recent months. In a Daily Caller interview in September, he quipped about the star’s romance with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. “I wish the best for both of them. I hope they enjoy their life, maybe together, maybe not — most likely not,” he said.
A few months later, he bragged on Truth Social about signing The Music Modernization Act during his presidency. “Joe Biden didn’t do anything for Taylor, and never will,” he wrote in February, touching on Swift’s support of the current president’s White House bid in 2020. “There’s no way she could endorse Crooked Joe Biden, the worst and most corrupt President in the History of our Country, and be disloyal to the man who made her so much money.”
