Adedokun Waliyu 
Former President Donald Trump has responded to Taylor Swift’s support of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris following their debate Tuesday night.
After their first televised faceoff, Swift posted a photo alongside her cat Benjamin Button and told her 283 million followers on Instagram that she is “voting for Kamala Harris.”
“I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos,” Swift wrote late Tuesday her social media post.
Swift said in her message that she was moved to speak out after Trump decided to post AI-generated pictures encouraging her fans to vote for him. One showed Swift dressed as Uncle Sam, and the text said “Taylor wants YOU to VOTE for DONALD TRUMP.”
Another showed women wearing “Swifties for Trump” T-shirts.
The former president’s posts “brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter,” Swift wrote. The singer, who signed off by calling herself a “Childless Cat Lady,” added that “I’ve done my research, and I’ve made my choice.”
Swift’s “childless cat lady” reference was a dig at past comments made by Trump’s running mate JD Vance, who said during a 2021 interview: “We are effectively run in this country, via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”
Swift’s endorsement post racked up over 8.7 million likes by Wednesday morning and was shared over 1.4 million times.
“She is a cultural icon,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom told reporters about Swift after the debate. He warned Trump to disparage Swift’s endorsement “at your own peril.”
“Her speaking out is a big darn deal,” Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro added. “That’s a huge endorsement.”
But Trump’s campaign team was quick to dismiss Swift’s backing of Harris.
“This is further evidence that the Democrat Party has unfortunately become a party of the wealthy elites,” said spokesperson Karoline Leavitt.
“There’s many Swifties for Trump out there in America,” she added, including herself among them.
On Wednesday, Trump responded to her post during an appearance on Fox & Friends, saying, “I actually like Mrs. (Brittany) Mahomes much better if you want to know the truth. She’s a big Trump fan. I was not a Taylor Swift fan.”
Brittany, who is a friend of Swift’s and the wife of Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, caused a stir last month when she lashed out at critics suffering “deep rooted issues” as rumours swirled that she had given her stamp of approval to “The 2024 GOP Platform” shared by Trump.
In the former president’s Instagram message, he promised, among other things, to “stop the migrant invasion,” “deport pro-Hamas radicals,” “keep men OUT of women’s sports,” “lock up violent offenders,” “prevent World War III,” and “stop the migrant crime epidemic.”
During his call-in to Fox & Friends, Trump said he wasn’t surprised Swift is backing the Democrats calling her “a very liberal person.”
“It was just a question of time,” he said. “You couldn’t possibly endorse Biden. You look at Biden — you couldn’t endorse him …. She seems to always endorse a Democrat, and she’ll probably pay a price for it … in the marketplace. But no, I liked Brittany.”
Mahomes appeared to fire back at critics with a message of her own after controversy brewed over her apparent “like” of Trump’s social media post last month.
“I mean honestly, to be a hater as an adult, you have to have some deep-rooted issues you refuse to heal from childhood,” a message on the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model’s Instagram read. “There’s no reason your brain is fully developed and you hate to see others doing well.”
