The Kamala Harris and Tim Walz campaign took advantage of Donald Trump's blunt social media statement “I hate Taylor Swift!” by issuing a somewhat longer statement about Swift — in which they cite 28 Swift song titles or lyrics.
The statement released by the Democratic campaign on Sunday morning was titled “Trump’s Bad Week (Taylor’s Version).” The statement begins, “We are pretty sure it’s safe (and proper) to say that Donald Trump had a bad week. Mr. Trump is not doing well at all.” [a permutation of the title of the Vault track ‘Mr. Perfectly Fine’] He's spent this week dealing with his feelings, complaining about his problems with champagne…” He continues in this vein as he goes on to include over twenty references that will be instantly recognizable to the singer's fans.
The statement doesn’t explicitly refer to the statement Trump made on his Truth Social account Sunday morning — which simply read, “I hate Taylor Swift!” The sheer number of references to songs in the Harris/Walz rant suggests a level of research that suggests the statement was prepared in advance. But what may have been an unintentional mistake by Trump on Sunday morning in antagonizing the Swifties provided the opposing campaign with the perfect opportunity to show some fans some love, amid the anger.
Songs or albums referenced in the Harris-Walz campaign statement are: “Safe & Sound”, “Down Bad”, “Mr. “Perfectly Fine” (changed to “Mr. Not Fine at All”), “Champagne Problems”, “The Man”, “Name It”, “Nothing New”, “The Youngest Man Who Ever Lived”, “Get Rid of It”, “Bad Blood”, “Better Than Revenge”, “Sad, Beautiful, Tragic”, “But Daddy, I Love Him” (via the line “God, you should have seen the faces of the American people”), “I Forgot You Existed”, “Out of the Woods”, “Blank Space”, “Start Over”, “Long Lived”, “All Is Well”, “Last Time”, “Endgame”, “Breathe”, “Our Story”, “Back to December”, “Enchanted”, “Fearless”, “1989” and “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” (cited via the “As Always” ending of the statement).
One typical campaign statement reads: “His constant rants, rantings, and conspiracy theories have led many to question whether he is too ‘emotional’ to be president. Call it what you will, but that’s nothing new for the shortest man who ever lived.”
The latter song's title became widely referenced Sunday morning, with Liz Cheney quoting Trump's tweet, “I hate Taylor Swift!” and adding simply, “The smallest man who ever lived.”
The Harris campaign’s statement included headlines like “Trump’s Sad, Beautiful, Tragic Week” — but with “beautiful” crossed out — as well as “Oh my God, you should have seen the faces of the American people.” Other paragraphs in the statement included: “Trump and his inner circle of extremists can’t seem to shake this while the bad blood simmers between Trump, his running mate, and his party… Donald Trump’s week of whining and conspiracy theories has voters on both sides of the aisle ready to forget he ever existed… We can make sure our story is one of progress — and show Donald Trump that we will not go back to December 2020 the way it was before.”
Vice presidential candidate Walz also referred to “the smallest man who ever lived” at a rally Saturday night, though his words in the allusion were a bit imprecise.
“This is my advice to all the men out there,” Walz said at the event in Superior, Wisconsin. “Surround yourself with smart women and listen to them, and you will succeed. That also includes my fellow cat owner Taylor Swift, by the way. … It’s really cool to have all these women helping us beat the world’s shortest man: Donald Trump.”
Trump’s “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!” proclamation on Sunday morning — issued in his usual all-caps, with no other context — was puzzling to some political observers, because while he was upset with the star for endorsing Harris, there may be little point in further antagonizing her hundreds of millions of fans, unless he saw a point in directly courting the bachelor crowd who hate Swift.
Earlier, Trump had been more measured in his response to Swift’s endorsements of his opponents. “I’ve never been a fan of Taylor Swift,” he said in an interview on Fox & Friends on Wednesday, the day after the presidential debate and Swift’s endorsement. “It was just a matter of time. There’s no way she’d endorse Biden… But she’s a very liberal person. She always seems to be endorsing Democrats, and she’s probably going to pay for it in the marketplace.”
Of course, Swift endorsed Joe Biden over Trump in the 2020 election cycle, with little impact on the market, as her Eras tour is expected to more than double the all-time box office record for a tour.
The Trump-Vance campaign has at times seemed confused in its response to Swift’s endorsement of Harris. J.D. Vance sparked jokes among Democrats about his lack of self-awareness about his ticket when he said that most Americans “would not be swayed by a celebrity billionaire who I think is fundamentally disconnected from the interests and problems of most Americans.”
In a March 2023 Morning Consult poll, 53% of U.S. adults said they were fans of Swift. The poll was conducted just before the start of her Eras Tour.
