Former President Donald Trump made a bizarre and false claim on Sunday, alleging that pop superstar Taylor Swift had endorsed him for the 2024 presidential election. The claim came through a series of AI-generated images posted on Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social.
One of the images featured a photoshopped picture of Swift dressed in an Uncle Sam-style outfit, reminiscent of classic military recruitment posters, with the text, “TAYLOR WANTS YOU TO VOTE FOR DONALD TRUMP.” Alongside this, Trump shared a fabricated news article falsely claiming that Swift’s fans were “turning to Trump” after a recent terror plot targeting her concert in Vienna, Austria. The collage of posts was further adorned with AI-generated photos of women wearing “Swifties for Trump” t-shirts.
Trump captioned the collage with the words, “I accept!” seemingly embracing the fabricated endorsement, according to HuffPost.
However, the reality is quite different. Taylor Swift has not endorsed any candidate for the 2024 presidential election. In fact, during the 2020 election, she publicly supported Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. In an interview with V Magazine at the time, Swift explained her decision, stating, “The change we need most is to elect a president who recognizes that people of color deserve to feel safe and represented, that women deserve the right to choose what happens to their bodies, and that the LGBTQIA+ community deserves to be acknowledged and included.”
Swift has been a vocal critic of Donald Trump in the past, particularly regarding his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and his role in fueling white supremacy and racism during his presidency. In the lead-up to the 2020 election, she urged her fans to “Request a ballot early. Vote early.”
Trump has commented on Swift before, questioning her political stance. Earlier this year, in an interview with Variety editor-in-chief Ramin Setoodeh for his book Apprentice in Wonderland: How Donald Trump and Mark Burnett Took America Through the Looking Glass, Trump expressed surprise at Swift’s success despite her liberal views, saying, “It surprises me that a country star can be successful being liberal.”
This latest episode of Trump’s social media activity, featuring fabricated endorsements and AI-generated images, highlights the ongoing and contentious relationship between the former president and the pop icon, who has consistently voiced her opposition to his political views and actions.