Donald Trump loves him some Twitter. It's 280 - character limit is perfect for someone who notoriously has little ability to stay focused or read text of any length.
He uses it in lieu of actual official presidential statements. He uses it in lieu of press conferences. He uses it to pick fights with various figures, from journalists to other world leaders.
And he uses it to be a petty taunting bully to the Democratic Party.
So earlier this week, Trump tweeted, from both his personal and the White House official account, the above video, to the accompaniment of REM's "Everybody Hurts" . And therein lies the problem. Trump doesn't like asking for permission to use songs. And REM is definitely not willing to overlook that.
The band’s official Twitter account made their stance on all things Trump clear shortly after the president posted the video, and bassist Mike Mills posted a tweet of his own imploring Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to remove the clip. As CNBC reports, R.E.M. followed up with a copyright infringement notice filed by their publisher, and shortly thereafter users found attempts to play the video in the presidential tweet greeted with a "Content not found" notice. The tweet was eventually deleted.
On Saturday, Trump tweeted the video again, to the tune of a country song. At the time of writing, there is no indication whether he had permission to use this song either.
