Donald Trump may now be the presumptive Republican nominee for president, but that doesn’t mean he can always get what he wants. Yesterday, the Rolling Stones decided that Trump was as unfit to use their music as he is to run the country, so they issued a cease-and-desist letter after the candidate played “Start Me Up” at a rally at Trump Tower in New York.
“The Rolling Stones have never given permission to the Drumpf campaign to use their songs and have requested that they cease all use immediately,” the band said in a statement.
Because Trump is Trump, he didn’t admit to any wrongdoing when asked about the matter today, instead saying that he “always buys the rights” to songs and enjoys the Stones’ music, which he’s used for months. And to be fair, if he acquired a blanket license for all of the songs in the catalog of one of the big performing rights organizations like ASCAP or BMI, Trump probably did have the right to play the Stones at his events. But now that they’ve asked him to stop, it seems likely that he’ll listen—he listened to Adele, Aerosmith, Neil Young and REM’s Michael Stipe when they made similar requests.
The candidate with the “best words” also said he “uses so many songs.” But imagine a world where every artist prevented Trump from using their music on his campaign. He’d be stuck with this gem…
…which is probably what he deserves.