UPDATE:The now-deleted Donald Trump tweet was rendered toothless thanks to a copyright strike.
A lawyer for Universal Music Publishing Group, the "Everybody Hurts" copyright holder, reportedly asked Twitter to remove the video on Friday, an unnamed source who is "familiar with the situation" told CNBC. Whatever legal wrangling happened behind the scenes, it's done: the video is no longer viewable.
R.E.M. bassist, himself an outspoken Trump critic, hailed the news -- and the Trump-aligned backlash against Twitter's act of "censorship" (it was actually just a perfectly normal and legitimate copyright claim) -- with a wry tweet mocking Trump's frequent campaign boasts about how, with him in the White House, the people of the United States would get tired of winning all the time.
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Original post follows....
Donald Trump is back at it again with the extremely un-presidential tweets.
On Friday afternoon, hours after he held a press conference outside the White House to announce he was declaring a national emergency (even though he didn't need to) the president tweeted a parody State of the Union video in an effort to mock Democrats.
The video, originally created by @carpedonktum, shows clips of Democratic members of Congress at Trump's State of the Union address set to that super emo R.E.M. song, "Everybody Hurts."
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The 2:20 video was posted to YouTube earlier this month and received more than 50,000 views, but it seems Trump just noticed -- and it must have really spoken to him.
After he shared the video of the Democratic party "hurting" on his official POTUS Twitter account, as you can probably imagine it didn't go over so well with many followers.
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And as for @carpedonktum, who has made other political parodies in the past, he seems to be just as in shock over the president sharing his video as the rest of us.
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While R.E.M. has yet to respond to Trump's usage of their song, we have a feeling the band might not be too thrilled. Back in 2015, R.E.M. spoke out to condemn politicians who use their music without permission, such as Mike Huckabee and Donald Trump.
"Go fuck yourselves, the lot of you — you sad, attention-grabbing, power-hungry little men," bassist Mike Mills tweeted on behalf of the band after Trump played their song, "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" during an anti-Iran deal rally.
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The band then posted a statement to their Facebook group, asking candidates to "cease and desist," and Mills further discussed his thoughts on Twitter, calling Trump an attention-seeking "Orange Clown."
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Both Mills and Stipe have been extremely open about their dislike for the president over the years, and during a live Q&A with NME in November 2017, the two discussed how their music related to the chaotic political state of America. And today, Mills also spends a great deal of time tweeting negatively about Trump, so he's clearly nota fan.
R.E.M. Mike Mills tweeting about Trump.Credit: screengrab/twitterWhile the country waits for R.E.M. to potentially lose their shit over Trump once againassociating himself with their music despite being asked not to, let us find comfort in that scene from The Office where Dwight cries in his car to "Everybody Hurts."
What a mood, America.
UPDATEDFeb. 16, 2019, 11:52 a.m. with news of the video's removal from Twitter and the reported reason for that removal.
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