Taylor Swift’s political leanings have been a hot topic for many years now (Swift released a whole documentary about it). The artist has a long history with Donald Trump, who practically begged her not to endorse his 2024 opponent. Swift backed Kamala Harris anyway, but as it turned out, the race didn’t hinge on the Swiftie vote. Now, there’s renewed attention on their beef, as both Swift and Trump are planning to attend the Super Bowl on Sunday.
Here’s a guide to all the bad blood between the president and the pop star, which we’ll keep updated and packed with Easter eggs that reveal the Reputation (Taylor’s Version) release date (just kidding).
Is Taylor Swift definitely going to be at the Super Bowl?
It appears so. She attended last year’s game to support boyfriend Travis Kelce, who is a tight end on the Kansas City Chiefs. This year, the Chiefs will face the Philadelphia Eagles (the team Swift grew up rooting for) at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans. Jason Kelce, Travis’s brother, told People that Swift will be in attendance. (And will Swift perform at the halftime show? Is Travis going to propose at the game? Those are questions for another explainer.)
Why is Donald Trump attending the Super Bowl?
Probably because it’s fun and he loves to make himself the center of attention. This will be the first time a sitting president has ever attended the game.
What did Travis Kelce say about Trump?
When asked about Trump attending the game, Kelce tried to give a politically neutral response (which, of course, many people did not love).
“That’s awesome. It’s a great honor,” Kelce told reporters on February 5. “I think, you know, no matter who the president is, I know I’m excited because it’s the biggest game of my life, and having the president there — you know, it’s the best country in the world. So that’d be pretty cool.”
Did Joe Biden and Swift rig the 2024 Super Bowl?
No, though a February 2024 poll found nearly one in five Americans believed this conspiracy theory. Biden joked about the idea that he and Swift rigged the Super Bowl for Kelce and the Chiefs in his first TikTok and immediately after the game on Instagram.
Did Swift endorse Biden?
Yes — but only in 2020. He dropped out of the 2024 race before she endorsed a candidate.
Swift made her first public presidential endorsement about a month before the 2020 election. She announced her support for the Biden-Harris ticket with this tweet:
Swift told V magazine at the time:
The change we need most is to elect a president who recognizes that people of color deserve to feel safe and represented, that women deserve the right to choose what happens to their bodies, and that the LGBTQIA+ community deserves to be acknowledged and included. Everyone deserves a government that takes global health risks seriously and puts the lives of its people first. The only way we can begin to make things better is to choose leaders who are willing to face these issues and find ways to work through them.
I will proudly vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in this year’s presidential election. Under their leadership, I believe America has a chance to start the healing process it so desperately needs.
Did Swift endorse Kamala Harris in 2024?
Eventually. After months of speculation, Swift endorsed Harris in this Instagram post, which she put up shortly after the end of the Democrat’s first and only debate against Trump on September 10, 2024:
In the post, Swift hit back at Trump for sharing AI-generated images that falsely suggested she had endorsed him. “It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation,” she said.
She concluded with a jab at Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance, signing off, “Childless Cat Lady.” And the image was a dig at Trump, too: It’s a shot of Swift with one of her three cats from when she was named 2023’s Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” — an honor Trump is famously obsessed with.
Did Trump really think Swift endorsed him?
Yes, it appears that Trump fell for AI-generated images that suggested Swift had endorsed him. On August 18, 2024, he posted a collage of four “Swifties for Trump” images with the caption “I accept!”
It’s possible that Trump was just saying “I accept” to the huge support he was receiving from Swifties, not Swift herself. But either way, this was fake news. Trump’s post consisted of a news article clearly marked “satire,” two AI-generated images, and an actual photo of a woman who likes both Trump and Swift with a false caption. While plenty of Trump voters like Swift’s music, there was no widespread or well-organized “Swifties for Trump” movement.
Did Trump really say “I hate Taylor Swift”?
Yes. The morning after Swift endorsed Harris, Trump told Fox & Friends, “I was not a Taylor Swift fan.” He predicted that Swift would “probably pay a price for it in the marketplace,” then praised Swift’s friend Brittany Mahomes, saying she’s a “big MAGA fan.”
Early on the morning of September 15, Trump indicated he had further soured on Swift, declaring in a Truth Social post, “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!”
What’s the origin of the beef between Trump and Swift?
Swift publicly criticized Trump for the first time on June 1, 2019, in an open letter to Tennessee senator Lamar Alexander. While urging the Republican to ensure protections for the LGBTQ+ community by passing the Equality Act, she said of President Trump:
I personally reject the President’s stance that his administration “supports equal treatment of all,” but that the Equality Act, “in its current form is filled with poison pills that threaten to determine parental and conscience rights.” No, one cannot take the position that one supports a community, while condemning it in the next breath as going against “conscience” or “parental rights.” That statement implies that there is something morally wrong with you being anything other than heterosexual or cisgender, which is an incredibly harmful letter to send to a nation full of healthy and loving families with same-sex, non-binary or transgender parents, sons or daughters.
Swift had kept her political views to herself until the 2018 midterms, when she spoke out against Tennessee Senate candidate Marsha Blackburn. Swift explained why she’d previously remained silent in her Instagram post opposing Blackburn (who went on to win the election):
In the past I’ve been reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions, but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now. I always have and always will cast my vote based on which candidate will protect and fight for the human rights I believe we all deserve in this country. I believe in the fight for LGBTQ rights, and that any form of discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender is WRONG. I believe that the systemic racism we still see in this country towards people of color is terrifying, sickening and prevalent.
Swift’s decision to endorse two Democrats in the 2018 midterms was a major plot point in her documentary Miss Americana. In the film, per the Daily Beast, she says she regrets not denouncing Trump publicly in 2016:
In Miss Americana, released in 2020, Swift calls Blackburn “Trump in a wig” in footage of conversations leading up to her decision to drop the post. When one of Swift’s entourage warns her that speaking out against the candidate will prompt the press to conclude that she is also condemning Trump, Swift makes her stance clear. “I don’t care if they write that,” she says. “I’m sad I didn’t say it two years ago.”
Trump mildly rebuked Swift in 2018 after she endorsed Marsha Blackburn’s opponent, per the Daily Beast:
Shortly afterward at a press conference, Trump smirked that he was “sure Taylor Swift has nothing, or doesn’t know anything about [Blackburn].” Then the infamous quote, later referenced on the Taylor Swift Netflix documentary Miss Americana: “And let’s say that I like Taylor’s music about 25 percent less now, OK?”
What did Swift say about Trump during the 2020 election?
In addition to endorsing the Biden-Harris ticket, Swift voiced her support for the Black Lives Matter movement and criticized Trump several times on Twitter. In May 2020, she promised “we will vote you out in November”:
And in August 2020, she accused Trump of trying to sabotage mail-in voting and said his “ineffective leadership” had “gravely worsened” the COVID-19 crisis:
Has Swift expressed her anti-Trump feelings in song?
Yes, on more than one occasion. In January 2020, Swift released the song “Only the Young” to accompany the Miss Americana documentary. The lyrics seemed to make reference to Trump winning the 2016 election and other political issues, like school shootings: “You go to class, scared / Wondering where the best hiding spot would be / And the big bad man and his big bad clan / Their hands are stained with red.”
In October 2020, Swift allowed Representative Eric Swalwell’s Remedy PAC to use the song in a pro-Biden ad and got a personal thank-you from Kamala Harris:
While Swift’s 2019 song “Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince” is less explicitly anti-Trump, she confirmed in a September 2019 Rolling Stone interview that the high-school metaphor in the song is about Trump-era politics:
There are so many influences that go into that particular song. I wrote it a couple of months after midterm elections, and I wanted to take the idea of politics and pick a metaphorical place for that to exist. And so I was thinking about a traditional American high school, where there’s all these kinds of social events that could make someone feel completely alienated. And I think a lot of people in our political landscape are just feeling like we need to huddle up under the bleachers and figure out a plan to make things better.
Is Trump a Taylor Swift fan?
We know from this clip of Trump quietly driving his Rolls-Royce while listening to “Blank Space,” which was filmed by Melania Trump and posted on her Facebook page, that he doesn’t mind her music.
Trump tweeted about Swift several times during the Red era. He said the Swift–Connor Kennedy breakup was “great news” for her and called her “terrific.” He also cryptically thanked Swift for the “beautiful picture.” As the Daily Beast noted, “If this tweet implies the existence of a photo of Swift and Trump posing together, it has almost certainly been scrubbed from the internet forever at the hands of Tree Paine, Swift’s formidable publicist.”
What did Trump say about Swift during the 2024 race?
Rolling Stone reported in January 2024 that the ex-president and the pop star were engaged in a popularity contest (in his mind, at least):
Behind the scenes, Trump has reacted to the possibility of Biden and Swift teaming up against him this year not with alarm, but with an instant projection of ego. In recent weeks, the former president has told people in his orbit that no amount of A-list celebrity endorsements will save Biden. Trump has also privately claimed that he is “more popular” than Swift is and that he has more committed fans than she does, a person close to Trump and another source with knowledge of the matter tell Rolling Stone.
Last month, the source close to Trump adds, the ex-president commented to some confidants that it “obviously” made no sense that he was not named Time magazine’s 2023 Person of the Year — an honor that went to none other than Swift in December.
On February 11, 2024, Trump made a desperate attempt to steal attention from Kelce and Swift and convince her not to endorse Biden. He posted this on Truth Social hours before the Super Bowl:
Prior to Swift’s Harris endorsement, Trump was careful not to criticize Swift in public. In a November 2023 interview conducted for the book Apprentice in Wonderland: How Donald Trump and Mark Burnett Took America Through the Looking Glass, Trump repeatedly called Swift “beautiful” and questioned whether she’s actually liberal. Variety published an excerpt from the book on June 10, 2024:
Trump, usually one to punch back at critics, is smart enough to know Swift’s fame is on another level. “She’s got a great star quality,” Trump says. “She really does.” Trump is effusive as he uses one of his favorite adjectives to describe women—“beautiful”— several times in a row.
“I think she’s beautiful — very beautiful! I find her very beautiful. I think she’s liberal. She probably doesn’t like Trump. I hear she’s very talented. I think she’s very beautiful, actually — unusually beautiful!” It’s her fame, not her songcraft, that fascinates Trump. When asked about Swift’s music, played so frequently on the radio that it’s inescapable in daily life, he says, “Don’t know it well.”
Beyond Swift’s looks, what intrigues Trump the most is the idea — frequently bandied about online before she endorsed the Democratic Senate candidate in Tennessee in 2018 — that she could secretly be supporting him. “But she is liberal, or is that just an act?” he asks me. “She’s legitimately liberal? It’s not an act? It surprises me that a country star can be successful being liberal.”
I tell Trump that Swift is no longer a country star; she’s been making pop music for years. He doesn’t seem aware of this, but he reaches for a different name. “Garth Brooks is liberal. Explain that! How does it happen? But he’s liberal.” Trump trails off. “It’s one of those things …”
Two weeks later, CNN played the audio recording of Trump rambling about Swift’s beauty:
Then during a closed-door meeting with Republican members of Congress on June 13, 2024, Trump reportedly complained about Swift being a Biden supporter:
What’s going on with Trump, Swift, and Brittany Mahomes?
Brittany Mahomes is the wife of Travis Kelce’s teammate, the quarterback Patrick Mahomes. It seems the two women became friends while watching their partners’ games last year; they were photographed hanging out in the VIP suite during Chiefs games, and later Brittany was spotted with Swift and her other girlfriends in New York.
On August 13, Brittany liked and then unliked a post outlining Trump’s 2024 platform, including proposals like “Seal the border, and stop the migrant invasion,” “Keep men OUT of women’s sports,” and “Carry out the largest deportation operation in American history.”
People online were not thrilled about Brittany even briefly expressing support for Trump’s policies. As Vox explains, she responded to the negative attention by posting an Instagram Story trashing her “haters.” It read:
I mean honestly, to be a hater as an adult, you have to have some deep rooted issues you refuse to heal from childhood. There’s no reason your brain is fully developed and you hate to see others doing well.
She later liked a comment on one of her Instagram posts that said “TRUMP-VANCE 2024.” On August 26, she shared another apparent response that read:
Contrary to the tone of the world today … You can disagree with someone, and still love them. You can have differing views, and still be kind.
Trump then fanned the flames of the controversy by thanking Brittany for “strongly defending me,” which she didn’t really do:
What does any of this have to do with Swift? Nothing, really. She hasn’t said anything about the controversy. But some people are upset that Swift is not dumping Brittany as a friend over her apparent Trump support. And Trump keeps publicly praising Brittany and Patrick Mahomes in weird ways. It’s almost as if he’s feeling a little sensitive about repeatedly being snubbed by their pal Taylor.
This piece has been updated throughout.
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