Ariana Grande Told Team Trump ‘Never Use My Music Again.’ It Was the Third Time in Under a Year She’s Had to Say It.
On Thursday afternoon, August 20, 2026, Team Trump’s official TikTok account posted a clip of President Trump walking to a rally podium, scored to Ariana Grande’s 2024 single “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love).” On-screen text quoted the song’s own lyrics — “Me and my truth we sit in silence” — before cutting to a second line: “Men can’t have babies and should never compete in women’s sports.” The caption read: “This shouldn’t be controversial! #trump #arianagrande #maga.”
Grande found the post and commented directly on it: “Never use my music again. Also, your truth is false.” The comment didn’t stay up long — it was deleted or hidden within hours — but fans had already screenshotted it, and it circulated widely enough that nine-plus entertainment and news outlets reported on it within a day. Her label moved to get the song pulled from the clip; the post’s audio was subsequently stripped, now showing only “this sound isn’t available.”
This is a TDS Watch item because of the pattern, not the punchline: it is the third time in under a year that a Trump-aligned or White House account has set political messaging to a Grande song, and the third time Grande has very publicly objected. Each round has followed the same script — the song goes up, Grande objects, the song comes down — and each round has generated a bigger reaction than the one before it.
- 3rd time in under a year Grande has publicly objected to a Trump-aligned or White House account using her music — September 2025, June 2026, and August 2026 — PJ Media; Variety
- “Never use my music again. Also, your truth is false.” Grande's own comment on the Aug. 20, 2026 Team Trump TikTok post, later deleted but preserved via screenshot — Deadline; Billboard
- “This sound isn't available” what the Team Trump TikTok post displayed after the song was pulled following Grande's objection — TMZ; Breitbart
- “Congrats, you got played” an unnamed administration official's words to Variety on the Taylor Swift version of the same music-dispute playbook — Variety, Aug. 21, 2026
The August 20 post arrived on a Thursday afternoon, roughly 3:46 p.m. Pacific, timed to the start of a Trump rally. The pairing was deliberate: “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)” is a 2024 breakup single built around the refrain “me and my truth we sit in silence,” and the video’s editors used that line as a launchpad into a second on-screen statement about transgender athletes in women’s sports — turning Grande’s own lyric into a setup line for a policy point she had no part in making.
Grande’s reply was fast and unambiguous, and it wasn’t limited to a copyright complaint. “Also, your truth is false” directly engaged the substance of the on-screen text — a break from her two previous responses, which had objected to the use of her music without directly disputing the policy message layered over it. Within a day, her label had moved to have the track pulled from the post, and the clip’s audio track went dark.
The dispute has a documented history. The first round came on September 28, 2025, when Grande reshared an Instagram Story from activist Matt Bernstein questioning Trump voters — not a music-use complaint at all, but a political post in her own right. White House Deputy Press Secretary Kush Desai answered her publicly: “Save your tears, Ariana… Get well soon, Ariana!” It was the first time a White House communications official had responded to Grande by name, and it set the tone for everything that followed.
Round two came in June 2026, when a White House TikTok post used Grande’s song “Bye” over footage of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrest, captioned about border security. Grande objected in far sharper terms than she had in September: “Please do not ever use my music in relation to this barbaric, inhumane, heinous nonsense.” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson answered on the record: “We’ll say this one last time: what’s actually barbaric, inhumane, and heinous are the criminal illegal aliens who have injured and murdered innocent American citizens.” That song, too, was pulled from the post.
Two rounds in, the shape of the exchange was already set: a Trump-aligned account pairs a Grande song with a message she didn’t sign off on, Grande objects publicly, a White House or campaign spokesperson answers her by name, and the song comes down. Round three, in August, repeated the same four beats almost exactly — except this time Grande deleted her own comment rather than let it stand.
What makes the August round notable isn’t just that it happened again — it’s that an unnamed administration official had already told Variety, on the record about the same playbook used on a different pop star, exactly what the strategy is for. Asked about the parallel Taylor Swift version of this pattern, the official put it bluntly.
“Congrats, you got played.”
Unnamed administration official, quoted by Variety on the Taylor Swift version of this same playbook — describing the broader pattern the Grande dispute also fits
Read plainly, the official’s own words describe the mechanics at work: each Grande objection generates its own news cycle, independent of whether the song survives the post. PJ Media columnist Matt Margolis, whose column first aggregated the August exchange, framed it as the latest data point in what he called a “complete meltdown” pattern — three rounds, three public objections, three news cycles, each one larger than the last.
Grande’s comment didn’t land uncontested. Online critics pushed back within hours, circulating a 2015 remark of hers — made after she was filmed licking a display donut in a Los Angeles bakery and saying she “hate[d] Americans” — as evidence that her objection to being associated with a “truth” she disputed rang hollow. Others pointed to her own father’s public support for Trump-aligned figures as a supposed contradiction inside her own family, an argument several outlets, including Newsweek and The Blaze, noted was circulating widely even though it says nothing about whether Team Trump had the right to use the song in the first place.
A separate strand of the backlash focused on licensing rather than politics: several users argued that if Team Trump obtained the song through a standard TikTok commercial-use license, Grande’s objection was more about optics than legal standing — a distinct question from whether using her lyrics to introduce an unrelated policy statement was in good taste. Neither Grande nor her label has said publicly whether a licensing dispute, rather than a pure objection to association, was part of what got the August post’s audio pulled.
None of the three rounds turned on a legal dispute that reached a courtroom, and none produced a lasting rift with lasting consequences for either side — the pattern is the story. Three times in under a year, a Trump-aligned account has paired Grande’s music with a message she didn’t approve, and three times Grande has answered publicly, each time a little more pointed than the last: a sarcastic reshare in September, a direct rebuke in June, and by August a comment sharp enough that she deleted it herself.
The administration official’s “congrats, you got played” line is the clearest evidence yet that the reaction, not just the song, is the point of posting it. Grande’s own choice to escalate — disputing the substance of the message rather than just its use of her music — guarantees round three won’t be the last one either side has to explain.
Team Trump’s Aug. 20, 2026 TikTok set a rally clip to Ariana Grande’s “We Can’t Be Friends” alongside a statement on women’s sports; Grande commented “Never use my music again. Also, your truth is false,” then deleted it as fans preserved it by screenshot, and the song was pulled from the post. It’s the third such dispute in under a year, after a September 2025 exchange with Deputy Press Secretary Kush Desai and a June 2026 clash with spokeswoman Abigail Jackson over ICE-arrest footage. An unnamed administration official’s own words to Variety — “congrats, you got played” — describe exactly what each round is designed to produce: a bigger news cycle than the last one.
