Hear Trump’s reaction to Taylor Swift endorsing Kamala Harris
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00:00Moments after the big debate,
00:01Taylor Swift announcing she is voting
00:03for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.
00:05She also used her endorsement on
00:07Instagram to take a jab at Republican
00:09vice presidential nominee Jadie Vance,
00:11signing the post childless cat lady.
00:14Joining us now, CNN's Elizabeth Wagmeister.
00:17She has jumped into the political
00:19fray with no abandon here.
00:23She has, and you know,
00:24this isn't the first time that Taylor
00:27Swift has entered the political fray.
00:29Back in 2020, she did endorse Biden and Harris.
00:33So this isn't a huge surprise,
00:35but the surprise Sarah is that
00:37Taylor made an endorsement at all.
00:39It seems that for months there has
00:41been endless speculation on whether
00:44Taylor, who of course is one of the
00:45biggest stars on the planet,
00:47would make this endorsement.
00:48And this is the biggest endorsement
00:51from a celebrity yet for the vice president.
00:54Now, earlier this morning on Fox News,
00:57Trump was asked about Taylor's endorsement.
00:59Let's take a look at what he had to say.
01:04I actually like Mrs. Mahomes much better,
01:07if you want to know the truth.
01:08She's a big Trump fan.
01:10I was not a Taylor Swift fan.
01:12It was just a question of time.
01:14She couldn't, you couldn't possibly endorse Biden.
01:17You look at Biden, you couldn't possibly endorse him.
01:20But she's a very liberal person.
01:21She seems to always endorse a Democrat
01:24and she'll probably pay a price for it
01:27in the marketplace.
01:31Now, when he says Britney,
01:33he is referring to Britney Mahomes,
01:35who is the wife of the football star Patrick Mahomes.
01:38She allegedly liked a post of Trump.
01:40So there's been a lot of chatter about that.
01:44And you see right there that Taylor and Britney,
01:46who are good friends, they are hugging.
01:47They were at the US Open having fun this past weekend.
01:50People made a big deal of that,
01:52but just like Taylor and Britney,
01:54who are very famous in the real world,
01:56of course, Sarah, people have friends
01:58from all different walks of the political aisle.
02:02I'm not sure she gives a rat's tail
02:03about potentially losing some fans
02:06because that hasn't happened before
02:08and she's endorsed before,
02:09but we will see what happens in the future.
02:11Elizabeth Wagmeister, thank you so much
02:13for your reporting there.
02:14Taylor Swift took to Instagram.
02:16She wrote this, quote,
02:17I'm voting for Kamala Harris
02:18because she fights for the rights and causes
02:20I believe need a warrior to champion them.
02:23She added, I was so heartened and impressed
02:25by her selection of running mate, Tim Walz,
02:27who's been standing up for LGBTQ plus rights, IVF,
02:30and a woman's right to her own body for decades.
02:33Last night, Donald Trump didn't shy away
02:35from his role in overturning Roe versus Wade.
02:38What I did is something for 52 years,
02:42they've been trying to get Roe v. Wade into the states.
02:46And through the genius and heart and strength
02:51of six Supreme Court justices,
02:54we were able to do that.
02:57Here was Harris making clear that she wants
02:59federal abortion rights protected federally once again.
03:04I absolutely support reinstating
03:07the protections of Roe v. Wade.
03:08And as you rightly mentioned,
03:11nowhere in America is a woman carrying a pregnancy
03:16to term and asking for an abortion.
03:20That is not happening.
03:22All right, David Poliansky,
03:24I'm gonna put you on the spot
03:25because you have a daughter who's a big Swifty.
03:27So you probably know as much or more
03:29as anyone at this table.
03:30I doubt that.
03:32About just how people respond to her.
03:35But also as the Republican at the table,
03:37I'm really interested to know,
03:38do you think Taylor Swift stepping in
03:41and doing this is gonna move votes,
03:43is gonna make a difference?
03:44Sure, 100%.
03:46You know, look, it was a great night
03:48for Democrats last night.
03:49There should be some celebration.
03:51It will last a day or two.
03:53And then this is gonna get back to the race
03:55that we've seen, a very tight race,
03:56which last time was about an 11,000 vote difference
03:59in places like Georgia and Arizona.
04:02So the debate will impact and move voters.
04:05It'll help shape the narrative.
04:07An endorsement like this can really move the needle
04:10over the long haul, especially with younger voters,
04:12with voters that I think Bakari talked about earlier,
04:15people that she needs to motivate to get out and vote.
04:18And even if they are gonna vote
04:19to make sure they vote for her
04:21and have an enthusiasm about them.
04:23I think it was the biggest part of last night,
04:26to be honest.
04:27One of the things that I thought was interesting,
04:28Bakari, about how she framed this was
04:31she said that she was voting for Harris.
04:35Many traditional endorsements,
04:36people will then say to their followers, supporters, people,
04:40you should vote for this person also.
04:43Taylor Swift didn't do that.
04:44She said in her endorsement, you do your research.
04:47You figure out who is the candidate for you
04:50and by the way, you need to be registered to vote.
04:52She's clearly talking to a group of people
04:55who she realizes may not interact
04:58with the political process.
04:59It seems to me that if there is power here, it's in that.
05:02And I actually, I give her credit
05:04for taking the sort of hands-off approach
05:06instead of trying to tell people what to do.
05:09You know, my five and a half year old twin, Sadie,
05:10she's going to listen to Bad Blood this morning
05:13while eating breakfast and have a little dance party
05:15before they go to school.
05:16Like we listen to Taylor Swift every morning
05:18in our household.
05:19I also think that people aren't picking up
05:22on something else she did.
05:24Hillary Clinton in 2016 was I'm with her
05:27and she made the race more so about her, right?
05:31And not about the public at large.
05:33I mean, that's the biggest criticism
05:35of the Hillary Clinton race as much as I love
05:37Madam Secretary.
05:39What Taylor Swift actually talked about
05:41was she didn't lean into the fact
05:42that Kamala Harris is going to be the first female
05:45president of the United States.
05:46She didn't lean into the fact
05:47that she's going to be the first black female president,
05:50et cetera, et cetera.
05:51She talked about the issues that mattered to her
05:53substantively about things like reproductive rights
05:56and those freedoms.
05:57And so I think that that gave,
06:00we're in such a permission structure as a community,
06:03as voters, I think it gave other women permission
06:07to say, look, you know what?
06:08I'm standing on these issues.
06:10I'm standing on them loudly and proudly
06:11the same way Taylor Swift did.
06:13You know, a long time ago in a galaxy far away,
06:16I wrote a book called The Power and the Glitter,
06:18which is a history of the relationship
06:19between Hollywood and politics going back to the 20s.
06:21And what I concluded was the main value
06:24that celebrities can bring to candidates.
06:26You know, it was about Louie Mayer
06:28and Herbert Hoover going back.
06:31But what celebrities do most of all
06:32is expand your communications bandwidth.
06:35They put you in front of voters who are not going
06:37to find you through the normal political channels.
06:40And as we were talking about before,
06:42as Bakari was mentioning, her challenge in many ways
06:45is to reach voters, younger, non-white voters in particular
06:49who are not necessarily easily contacted
06:53through conventional political channels.
06:55And what Taylor Swift does is reach them through other means
06:59and they will hear about the campaign,
07:02hear about her endorsement,
07:03hear about the need to register in a way
07:06that the debate itself, for example,
07:07was not going to reach all of those voters.
07:10They probably did not watch the debate.
07:12So although one of the things that she did
07:13really quite brilliantly is that she linked
07:16which is an organization that she has partnered with
07:19for years now.
07:20And we've seen her impact on registration numbers
07:23when she has done this before.
07:24100%.
07:25And one of the things that we know coming out of last night
07:27is that vote.org experienced a massive spike at two points.
07:32One, during the debate, when Kamala Harris was talking,
07:35she mentioned this point, she says, register to vote, right?
07:37There's an immediate spike and it's amongst
07:39that young demographic that she needs to win over.
07:42But two, when Taylor Swift comes out and says,
07:46hey, this is the choice that I'm making
07:47and I'm couching it in a framework of optimism
07:49and joy and hope, that immediately triggers another spike.
07:53It also triggers a fundraising spike,
07:55which is deeply important for these larger implications.
07:58One of the things I saw last night when that happened,
08:00I called Beyonce.
08:02I don't know if I have the right number.
08:03Yeah.
08:05I was calling and I said, I know it's late,
08:07tell Jay, I said, what's happening,
08:08but we need your endorsement.
08:10So that's the next endorsement that I'm waiting on.
08:12And that might be why she has me blocked.
08:13Yeah.
08:14It could be.
08:15They're waiting for the inauguration.
08:17That's when they'll come out.
08:18The Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Springsteen rally
08:20in Philadelphia in early November
08:22is gonna be so exciting.
08:22It's gonna be epic.
08:23That's gonna be epic.
08:24I mean, I'm actually, I was at the one
08:26that Hillary Clinton tried to do at the end
08:27and you could actually tell at that rally,
08:29which was a huge deal, big crowd or whatever,
08:30but somehow the energy was not, you know,
08:33it sort of presaged what was happening.
08:34She sent Beyonce to Cleveland and not to Detroit.
08:36That tells you everything you need to know
08:38about the Hillary Clinton 2016 campaign.
08:40Oh my gosh, okay.
08:41Guys, thank you so much for being here.