Following the NFL Super Bowl on Sunday night, the 77-year-old posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, taking credit for the pop star’s enormous success over the years.

In his post, Trump refers to the Music Modernisation Act that was passed under his watch as US president, legislation that helped artists earn royalties and licensing fees easier on music streaming services.

“I signed and was responsible for the Music Modernization Act for Taylor Swift and all other Musical Artists,” Trump wrote.

“Joe Biden didn’t do anything for Taylor, and never will.”

Swift hasn’t officially endorsed a presidential candidate yet for this year’s election, however she did publicly announce her support for President Joe Biden in 2020.

“There’s no way she could endorse Crooked Joe Biden, the worst and most corrupt President in the History of our Country, and be disloyal to the man who made her so much money,” Trump continued in his post.

“Besides that, I like her boyfriend, Travis, even though he may be a Liberal, and probably can’t stand me!”

Previously, Swift was known for keeping her politics to herself and very rarely demonstrated any political leaning in her art and in her presence in the public eye.

However, in the 2018 midterm election, Swift endorsed Democrat Senator Phil Bredesen and urged her fans to vote the same.

Her 2020 Netflix documentary Miss Americana includes footage of moments before she made the endorsement in a post on Instagram. While Swift’s father was concerned about security risks and potentially damaging headlines outing her opposition to Trump, she said it was something she felt she needed to do, regretting not speaking out sooner.

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A post shared by Loni Love (@comiclonilove)

Swift was particularly opposed to Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn – who ran against Democrat Senator Bredesen and ultimately won – based on her extreme right-wing views against women and the LGBTQIA+ community.

“She votes against fair pay for women. She votes against reauthorisation of the violence against women act, which is just basically protecting us from domestic abuse and stalking,” Swift said in the footage on Miss Americana.

“She thinks that if you’re a gay couple or even if you look like a gay couple you should be allowed to be kicked out of a restaurant.

“I can’t see another commercial [with] her disguising these policies behind the words ‘Tennessee Christian values. Those aren’t Tennessee Christian values’. I live in Tennessee. I am Christian. That’s not what we stand for.”

Conspiracy theories

Trump’s comments on Taylor Swift comes off the back of far-right pundits accusing the pop star of being a “Pentagon asset” who will “rig” the upcoming presidential election in November in favour of the Democrat party.

Some referred to Swift as an “election interference psyop” who will turn Swifities into Democrat voters. Others have accused Swift of being a puppet for the NFL and Democrats, referencing her relationship with Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce, saying she will also rig the Super Bowl match.

While Swift has not addressed the accusations, President Joe Biden has not shied away from them, and instead, his social media team has taken the mickey out of it.

Just like we drew it up. pic.twitter.com/9NBvc5nVZE

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) February 12, 2024

In an unanticipated move, Biden also created a TikTok account on Sunday night – presumably to appeal to younger voters – that already has nearly 100,000 followers.

The post Donald Trump believes he is the man who made Taylor Swift ‘so much money’ appeared first on Women's Agenda.

Since the 34-year old singer began her high-profile relationship with Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce in September last year, conspiracy theories spouted by prominent MAGA figures have circulated online. They started off rather innocently — the misinformation accused the pair of entering a ‘fake’ relationship to boost their public profile (like Taylor needs that?).

Earlier this week, the accusations turned insidious and political, with a handful of influential right-wing personalities calling Swift an “election interference psyop” set on manipulating November’s presidential election. 

Swift has attended over 13-games to cheer on her boyfriend’s team and each time, a parade of cameras and commentaries descend on her every reaction. As their relationship played out publicly, some conspiracy theorists couldn’t help but slump into misogynistic trappings. 

On Monday, Jack Posobiec, a Trump supported who has been found to have “collaborated with white supremacists, neo-fascists and antisemites for years”, accused Swift of being “used”, though he failed to clarify whom she was being used by. 

“I think – and I’ve said this, I’ve taken a lot of crap for this online – I think they’re using Taylor Swift right now,” he said in a video posted on Truth Social. 

“They’re gearing up for an operation to use Taylor Swift in the election against everything: against Trump, for Biden, they’re gonna get her and all you know they call them the Swifties they’re going to turn those into voters, you watch.”

Former actor-turned controversial rightwing figure Roseanne Barr appeared alongside Posobiec in the video, saying, “I think that’s what they’re doing too, she’s definitely somebody who’s consented to speak the way the establishment wants to be spoken of.” 

“She has a lot of young girls…I think that’s gonna be the way they’re going to try to get on top of the next election.” 

The 71-year old former Nanny star and 2012 presidential nominee of the Peace and Freedom Party is a Trump supporter, appearing at a rally in Florida in November, calling the Former President the “Magador-in-Chief.”

Former Republican presidential candidate and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy responded to Posobiec’s post, writing on X: “I wonder who’s going to win the Super Bowl next month. And I wonder if there’s a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple this fall. Just some wild speculation over here, let’s see how it ages over the next 8 months.”

Ramaswamy has spread harmful misinformation about a number of issues in the past, including his claim that the January 6 insurrection was “an inside job” and that the 2020 election was stolen by “big tech.” 

Self-described Islamophobe and conservative Laura Loomer said “The Democrats’ Taylor Swift election interference psyop is happening in the open.”

“It’s not a coincidence that current and former Biden admin officials are propping up Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. They are going to use Taylor Swift as the poster child for their pro-abortion GOTV Campaign.”

Meanwhile, comedians have come out to ridicule these rightwing theories. On Tuesday night, Jimmy Kimmel opened his show with a monologue calling the theorists “a couple of nuts.”

Reading out a number of tweets, including one from Ramaswamy, Kimmel quibbed: 

“So let me get this straight: The same people who think Joe Biden has dementia and has Kamala Harris feed him butterscotch tapioca every night, also believe that he has somehow planned and executed a diabolically brilliant scheme to fix the NFL playoffs so the biggest pop star in the world can pop up on the jumbotron during the Super Bowl in between a Kia and a Tostitos commercial to hypnotize her 11-year-old fans into voting for Joe Biden?” he said on Jimmy Kimmel Live.

“I mean, it makes sense… These people think football is fake and wrestling is real.”

Swift has not yet issued an endorsement in the upcoming presidential race, though she is reported to be on Joe Biden aides’ “wish lists of potential surrogates”. 

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“I’m Nikki Haley, and I’m running for president,” she said in the video.

Known as South Carolina’s first woman and first person of colour to be elected governor in 2010, when she was just 38, Haley decided to throw her name in the presidential race — after weeks of speculation and rumours.  

She was an accountant before taking over from Larry Koon in 2004 as a member of South Carolina’s state house of representatives. In 2016, when Trump won the presidency, Haley was appointed US ambassador to the UN — a role she kept until 2018. 

Let’s take a look at who she is, what she stands for and the reactions to her announcement.

Daughter of Indian Immigrants 

Haley is the child of immigrants from India. She has publicly expressed the importance of her race, gender and ethnicity in establishing her values as a politician and what she hopes to change for the country. 

“I was the proud daughter of Indian immigrants. Not black, not white. I was different,” she said in her announcement video. 

“But my mum would always say, ‘Your job is not to focus on the differences, but the similarities.’

“Some look at our past as evidence that America’s founding principles are bad.” 

“They say the promise of freedom is just made up. Some think our ideas are not just wrong, but racist, and evil. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

Her family’s personal experience with racism has led her to back a range of social justice issues, including the removal of the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the South Carolina Capitol after the 2015 Charleston church shootings. 

At the time, Haley recounted an incident when she was a child, watching her father endure the shame of having two police officers stand by waiting to watch him pay for items at a produce stand.

“I remember how bad that felt,” she had said. “And my dad went to the register, shook their hands, said thank you, paid for his things and not a word was said going home. I knew what had just happened.”

“That produce stand is still there, and every time I drive by it, I still feel that pain. I realised that that Confederate flag was the same pain that so many people were feeling.”

A week after the shootings, Haley said “We are not going to allow this symbol to divide us any longer.”

“The fact that people are choosing to use it as a sign of hate is something we cannot stand. The fact that it causes pain to so many is enough to move it from the Capitol grounds. It is, after all, a Capitol that belongs to all of us.”

What does she stand for?

Despite being the child of immigrants, Haley is tough on immigration: in June 2011, in her first year as governor, she signed a bill that required police to check the immigration status of anyone they stop or arrest for any reason at all and suspect may be in the US illegally.

Voto Latino, a Washington-D.C based organisation that aims to encourage young Hispanic and Latino voters to register to vote, released a statement in the last 24 hours reminding the public of Haley’s decision to sign “a discriminatory and regressive … measure that allowed police officers to require the immigration papers of anyone [who] is stopped and suspected of being in the country without documentation”. 

She is big on education reform. In 2014, she signed a bill that redistributed money to districts with the highest poverty levels, providing $US29 million to place reading coaches in every South Carolina school.

A further $US29 million was provided to help schools with improving tech, including bandwidth, expand wireless access and ensuring every student has access to computer or tablet.

“We said technology is not just for wealthy school districts, it’s for all school districts,” Haley said at the time.

“We can no longer in South Carolina educate children based on where they live. We have to educate children based on that they deserve a good education.”

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A post shared by Nikki Haley (@nikkihaley)

Her announcement

“You should know this about me: I don’t put up with bullies,” Haley said in her three and a half minute video. “And when you kick back, it hurts them more if you’re wearing heels.” 

She spoke about the importance of believing in the promise of freedom in the U.S; a country she called the “freest and greatest in the world.” 

“Some think our ideas are racist, and wrong — nothing could be further from the truth.” 

She goes on to list the human rights violations in other countries, including China (“they commit genocide”) and Iran (“They murder their own people for challenging the government”). 

“Republicans have lost the popular vote in 7 out of the 8 presidential elections, but that has to change,” she continued, before calling Joe Biden’s current administration “abysmal”.

“The Washington establishment has failed us over and over again. It’s time for a new generation of leadership,” she said.

“To rediscover fiscal responsibility, secure our borders and strengthen our country our pride and our purpose.”

Reactions to her announcement:

Apparently, Trump, 76, isn’t too fussed about Haley’s presidential bid. Last month, he told reporters: “She called me and said she’d like to consider it. And I said you should do it.” 

His Make America Great Again MAGA committee however sang a different tune, releasing a statement on Tuesday calling Haley “just another career politician.” 

“She started out as a Never Trumper before resigning to serve in the Trump admin,” Taylor Budowich, Head of MAGA said. “She then resigned early to go rake in money on corporate boards. Now, she’s telling us she represents a ‘new generation.’ Sure just looks like more of the same, a career politician whose only fulfilled commitment is to herself.”

The Democratic party also unleashed some criticism, accusing Haley of embracing “the most extreme elements” of Maga’s agenda.

“She … couldn’t even identify a policy difference between herself and Trump,” the Democratic’s national chairperson, Jaime Harrison, said in statement issued after Haley’s announcement. 

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A post shared by Nikki Haley (@nikkihaley)

“Her governorship in South Carolina included signing an extreme abortion ban into law with no exceptions for rape or incest, endorsing a plan to end Medicare as we know it, pushing for tax cuts that benefit the ultra wealthy and corporations, and refusing to expand Medicaid to provide affordable health care access for hundreds of thousands of South Carolinians.” 

At this stage, Trump and Haley are the only two Republicans who have announced their presidential bid, while ten Democrats have launched campaigns or exploratory committees. 

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