Variety’s co-editor-in-chief Ramin Setoodeh has a new book called Apprentice in Wonderland: How Donald Trump and Mark Burnett Took America Through the Looking Glass (out in July). Setoodeh actually interviewed Donald Trump extensively, and the book is less about all of the crimes Trump committed and more about Trump as a pop culture figure. Setoodeh got Trump on the record about Kim Kardashian, Omarosa, Martha Stewart and other celebrities. In an early book excerpt, Setoodeh asked Trump about Taylor Swift. Swift didn’t say anything about Trump in 2016 (that was the year she was “canceled”), but Swift became more politically vocal throughout Trump’s presidency, endorsing Democrats in the 2018 midterms and then endorsing the Biden/Harris ticket in 2020.

Trump, usually one to punch back at critics, is smart enough to know Swift’s fame is on another level. “She’s got a great star quality,” Trump says. “She really does.” Trump is effusive as he uses one of his favorite adjectives to describe women—“beautiful”— several times in a row.

“I think she’s beautiful—very beautiful! I find her very beautiful. I think she’s liberal. She probably doesn’t like Trump. I hear she’s very talented. I think she’s very beautiful, actually—unusually beautiful!” It’s her fame, not her songcraft, that fascinates Trump. When asked about Swift’s music, played so frequently on the radio that it’s inescapable in daily life, he says, “Don’t know it well.”

Beyond Swift’s looks, what intrigues Trump the most is the idea— frequently bandied about online before she endorsed the Democratic Senate candidate in Tennessee in 2018—that she could secretly be supporting him. “But she is liberal, or is that just an act?” he asks me. “She’s legitimately liberal? It’s not an act? It surprises me that a country star can be successful being liberal.”

I tell Trump that Swift is no longer a country star; she’s been making pop music for years. He doesn’t seem aware of this, but he reaches for a different name. “Garth Brooks is liberal. Explain that! How does it happen? But he’s liberal.” Trump trails off. “It’s one of those things . .”

[Book excerpt courtesy of Variety]

I mean, a decade ago, Taylor was consistently criticized for not being political enough and not doing enough to clapback on the “Aryan goddess” white-supremacist branding. In 2016, Trump probably thought Taylor was on his side and part of his political base. Hell, back then, I kind of thought the same. He still wonders about it! It’s a little bit funny that he can’t name a Taylor Swift song though. At his rallies, he prefers classic rock and Adele. He LOVES Adele (and she wants nothing to do with him).

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.