Megyn Kelly criticized conservatives for worrying that Taylor Swift would influence the 2024 presidential election by endorsing Joe Biden.
Kelly has previously slammed Swift for her refusal to laugh at a joke aimed toward her at the Golden Globes and for attending a comedy show that benefitted pro-Palestinian charities.
However, recent reports that the Biden campaign has a nod from the singer at the top of their endorsement list for 2024 has led some conservatives to believe she will brainwash Americans into voting Democrat.
Kelly scoffed at it as a conspiracy theory and noted that ‘people on the right who I like and respect are pushing this.’
‘I don’t know why people are so afraid of her. She does have power, she does have influence, she’s told people to go vote and something like 35,000 of them did. But registering to vote is not the same as actually voting,’ she said on The Megyn Kelly Show.
Megyn Kelly criticized conservatives for worrying that Taylor Swift would influence the 2024 presidential election by endorsing Joe Biden but acknowledging she’s ‘sick of’ her and boyfriend Travis Kelce
She noted that other celebrities, like George Clooney, have pushed for candidates in the past and been unsuccessful.
Kelly did admit that Swift was likely to lean left in 2024 – as she did publicly in 2020 – as would her Pfizer and Bud Light pitchman boyfriend Kelce, but that it didn’t matter.
‘Why are people living in fear of this?’ she wondered, noting that she ‘doesn’t happy to be one of’ the ‘vast majority of people’ who find Swift interesting, again criticizing her for attending the comedy show that raised money for Palestine.
However, she felt that it was likely if Swift publicly endorsed the Democrat Biden it would lead to the end of a celebrity cycle in America where ‘we choose somebody, we build them up, then we crush them.’
‘If she’s smart, she will stay nonpolitical, which is better for her. She will not be the most popular person in America if she continues to antagonize half the country that votes Republican, but whatever,’ she said.
Her guests, conservative commentator Glenn Beck and Britt Mayer, agreed that the idea of Swift as a conspiracy was crazy.
Conservative influencer Benny Johnson called the mass coverage of Swift – arguably the biggest pop star on earth – ‘an op’ that was ‘all fake’ and said Americans are ‘being played.
Jack Posobiec also endorsed the theory in a recent speech, according to Semafor.
Kelly did admit that Swift was likely to lean left in 2024 – as she did publicly in 2020 – as would her Pfizer and Bud Light pitchman boyfriend Kelce, but that it didn’t matter
Recent reports that the Biden campaign has a nod from the singer at the top of their endorsement list for 2024 has led some conservatives to believe she will brainwash Americans into voting Democrat
Swift endorsed Biden in 2020 and his campaign hopes to harness her power this year to bring in young voters and campaign cash, the New York Times reported.
After all, a poll this month from Redfield & Wilton Strategies showed 18% of voters said they’re ‘more likely’ or ‘significantly likely’ to vote for a candidate endorsed by Swift.
The wooing of the singer is part of a greater effort by the Biden campaign to paint Donald Trump as a threat to abortion rights and to personal freedoms.
With Trump two wins in the Republican primary process, the Biden campaign is now focused on him as their competition in the 2024 election.
President Joe Biden’s campaign is wooing Taylor Swift for her endorsement
And to reach voters who may not consume traditional news – or who are turned off by an election that is a rematch from four years ago – the Biden campaign is attempting to reach these voters through social media, with videos from influencers.
The White House has hosted social media influencers to talk about health care and other issues. Now they are looking for their help for a second term.
When Biden was in California in December on a fundraising swing, his team met with a group of influencers to try and woo them to his campaign.
And, in North Carolina this month, Biden visited a man whose student loans were canceled through a federal program. The man’s son posted a video of the presidential visit to TikTok, which drew millions of views.
Top Democrats have pushed the president to focus on Swift.
‘Taylor Swift stands tall and unique,’ California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in September. ‘What she was able to accomplish just in getting young people activated to consider that they have a voice and that they should have a choice in the next election, I think, is profoundly powerful.’
Swift has, in the past, used her online influence to bring in the voters. A September 2023 post encouraging her 272 million followers to register to vote resulted in more than 35,000 registrations.
Biden will have plenty of opportunities to court the singer.
Her boyfriend Travis Kelce’s Kansas City Chiefs made it to the Super Bowl with Sunday night’s playoff win. If the Chiefs win the bowl, they’d get the traditional White House invite to mark their victory. Players typically bring a significant other to such an event.
There’s also a state dinner for Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio on April 10th if the White House wants to send the singer an invite.
President Joe Biden is also courting other social media influencers to try and reach voters who don’t consume news in traditional ways
Taylor Swift posted in her X account in October 2020: I spoke to @vmagazine about why I’ll be voting for Joe Biden for president
And there are issues that could interest Swift if she wants to get political. The singer was a victim of deepfakes generated by artificial intelligence that resulted in pornographic images of her all over social media.
On Wednesday, explicit AI-generated deepfaked images of Swift amassed tens of millions of views on X, formerly known as Twitter. The posts took hours to remove, and, at one point, X stopped searches of the singer’s name to combat the images.
The White House has expressed concern about the army of fake images on the internet – including those of dead children.
‘We are alarmed by the reports of the circulation of false images,’ White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Friday. ‘We are going to do what we can to deal with this issue.’
Even Biden has been a victim of AI generated content. During the New Hampshire primary, many voters there received a robocall, which sounded like Biden telling them to skip the primary.
There are no US federal law banning deepfakes, including those that are pornographic in nature.