Washington: US Vice President Kamala Harris received a major boost as global popstar Taylor Swift, who has a massive fanbase with 283 million followers on Instagram, announced that she will be supporting the 59-year-old Democrat in her bid for the White House in the November elections. The endorsement has been met with scorn from both former President Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance.
Swift made the endorsement on Instagram shortly after the furious 90-minute debate between Harris and Trump at ABC News on Tuesday, and her post had been liked nearly 2 million times within 25 minutes. "I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election. I’m voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them. 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," she said.
Swift was pictured with her cat in the post, which she signed as "childless cat lady," in a dig at Trump's running mate JD Vance, who in a 2021 interview called some Democrats "a bunch of childless cat ladies." He has since said it was merely a "sarcastic remark."
What did JD Vance on Taylor Swift's endorsement?
"We admire Taylor Swift's music, but I don't think most Americans, whether they like her music or are fans of hers or not, are going to be influenced by a billionaire celebrity who I think is fundamentally disconnected from the interests and the problems of most Americans," Vance told Fox News on Thursday.
"When grocery prices go by 20 per cent, it hurts most Americans. It doesn't hurt Taylor Swift. When housing prices become unaffordable, it doesn't affect Taylor Swift or any other billionaire. It does affect middle-class Americans all over our country," he added.
Vance faced renewed criticism recently for his "childless cats" remark from 2021, when he said key Democrats, including Harris were miserable without children, and wanted "to make the rest of the country miserable too". "We’re 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,” Vance said.
'She'll pay for it': Trump on Taylor Swift
Trump also reacted to Taylor Swift's endorsement of Kamala Harris, saying he "was not a Taylor fan". He told Fox News, "She's a very liberal person. She seems to always endorse a Democrat. And she'll probably pay a price for it ... in the marketplace."
In August, Trump posted a fake social media image of Swift asking people to vote for him in the November election. Swift made a reference to that in her post late on Tuesday, saying Trump's move "really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation." She added: "It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter."
Swift has supported Democrats in the past and backed President Joe Biden in 2020. Her endorsement is the latest for Harris from the entertainment industry. Many Hollywood actors, producers and filmmakers have said they viewed Harris, a native Californian, as their hometown candidate.
(with agency input)
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