Pentagon denies pop star Taylor Swift is part of secret ‘psy-op’ to boost Biden
The Pentagon has denied that Taylor Swift is secretly working to get Joe Biden re-elected in response to bizarre conspiracy theories that the pop star is conducting a “psychological operation” on his behalf.
Swift’s romance with American football star Travis Kelce has ignited a firestorm of publicity, and with it spurious online claims from some of Donald Trump’s supporters.
The most elaborate suggest the Super Bowl, the culmination of the American football season, has been rigged to ensure Kelce’s Kansas City Chiefs emerge victorious to boost Swift, and by extension US president Mr Biden.
In a tongue-in-cheek response, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said: “We know all too well the dangers of conspiracy theories, so to set the record straight – Taylor Swift is not part of a DoD (Department of Defense) psychological operation. Period.”
Ms Singh went on to make the most of the media interest and urged Congress to speed up their approval of a long-awaited Pentagon budget, along with Mr Biden’s $111 billion request for emergency funding for Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan and the US border.
“I’m sure she has other chief priorities, as do we, which is why we continue to urge Congress to complete the passage of a budget and our supplemental request so we can move the ball down field and across the goal line in support of critical national security priorities,” Ms Singh told Politico.
Other defence officials were less amused. “The absurdity of it all boggles the mind,” one senior US official told the website.
Conservative animosity to Swift, 34, has been building since she endorsed Mr Biden in 2020.
Her growing popularity and influence has only served to increase Republican trepidation over the power of a potential Democrat endorsement by the mega star. She has been catapulted to America’s billionaires’ ranks on the back of her global The Eras Tour.
But it was being named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year for 2023 that riled up far-Right commentators and even caught the attention of Fox News.
Jesse Watters, a Fox commentator, has claimed footage from a Nato summit supported the claim that Swift was part of an elaborate Pentagon “psy-op,” or psychological operation.
“It’s real. The Pentagon psy-op unit pitched Nato on turning Taylor Swift into an asset for combating misinformation online,” Watters said.
The Pentagon rebuffed the claim at the time, but with intense interest in Swift and Kelce’s burgeoning relationship, the bizarre claims have only escalated.
Other defence officials suggested they were not letting the furore occupy too much of their time.
“I mean, I love Taylor Swift, of course, but I haven’t spent more than two minutes thinking about this,” one senior Pentagon official told Politico.
