New York.- Former President Donald J. Trump, who has held a grudge against pop music megastar Taylor Swift, set the Internet alight on Sunday when he shared messages on social media suggesting that she had endorsed him and that her fans could help him win the November election.
In a post on his Truth Social social network, Trump drew attention to a group of images created using artificial intelligence. One showed Ms. Swift dressed as Uncle Sam with the headline: “Taylor wants you to vote for Donald Trump.” The others showed a crowd of young women wearing matching “Swifties for Trump” T-shirts.
At least one of the images, which was shared by a social media influencer aligned with Mr. Trump, was labeled “satire.”
“I accept,” Trump wrote in a post, implying that he had received Swift’s endorsement.
A representative for Ms. Swift, who has not made an endorsement this election cycle after supporting Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2020, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.
The Democrats’ mockery was not long in coming.
Rep. Eric Swalwell of California said on CNN Monday that the move would backfire on Trump.
“This genius, over the weekend, decided to poke Swifties in the eyes and suggest that Taylor Swift is endorsing him,” Swalwell said. “They’re going to have a blast ruining Donald Trump’s life for the next 78 days.”
AJ Delgado, a former communications adviser to Mr Trump’s 2016 campaign who sued him for wrongful termination, urged a publicist for Ms Swift to clear up the misinformation.
“Are you going to let this go uncorrected?” he wrote on X.
Trump’s tactic marked another turn in his long-standing concern about Swift, who earlier this year was at the center of a right-wing crisis over her political preferences. The Make America Great Again movement’s fixation emerged around the Super Bowl, when Swift’s boyfriend, Travis Kelce, the star tight end for the Kansas Chiefs, won back-to-back titles.
Conspiracy theories proliferated that Ms. Swift was a secret Pentagon agent and was building up her support base to prepare to support President Biden’s re-election.
At the time, Trump said he was more popular than Swift and that it would be disloyal for him to support Biden’s re-election, given that Trump had signed a law making it easier for artists to collect royalties for the airing of their songs.
Mr. Trump then privately complained to a group of House Republicans during a June visit to Capitol Hill that Ms. Swift did not support him in 2020.
That year, Ms. Swift did not hold back her criticism of Mr. Trump amid widespread protests after Minneapolis police killed George Floyd.
“After stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism his entire presidency, he has the nerve to feign moral superiority before threatening violence?” he wrote on Twitter, now X. “When the looting starts, the shooting starts. We will vote you out in November.”
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