United States Senator J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), the vice presidential running mate of former President Donald Trump, has responded to Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Democratic candidate for president Kamala Harris by blasting Swift for being a billionaire — despite the fact that Trump is also a billionaire.
Moments after Harris and Trump finished their debate on Tuesday night, the music superstar posted her endorsement for Harris on Instagram, noting that she “watched the debate” herself before deciding to make her views public.
Swift based her decision to support Harris on her support for LGBTQ rights, reproductive freedoms, and other issues. Swift also rebuked Trump for sharing AI-generated images of herself earlier in the campaign season that falsely purported she was backing him instead.
Trump’s posts of those images, and his views in general, “brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter,” Swift wrote in her missive. “The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth.”
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The musician signed the Instagram post, “Taylor Swift — Childless Cat Lady,” a dig at Trump’s running mate Vance, who made misogynistic comments against career-minded women in the past by using that term.
Asked about her endorsement the following day, Vance said on Fox News that he believed it was unimportant to most voters.
“I don’t think Most Americans…are going to be influenced by a billionaire celebrity who I think is fundamentally disconnected from the interests and the problems of most Americans,” Vance said.
Notably, Vance’s description of Swift also applies to his running mate Trump.
Trump himself has been a billionaire celebrity for longer than Swift has even been alive — he first expressed interest in a presidential run two years before she was born, though that was to promote his book “The Art of the Deal.” In addition to his name being plastered on dozens of buildings throughout the world, Trump has cameoed in over 26 movies and TV shows since 1989, including “Home Alone 2” and “Zoolander.” He also hosted a reality television series called “The Apprentice” for more than a decade before deciding to run for president in 2015.
Although he belittled Swift for being a billionaire, Vance is very friendly with many Silicon Valley personalities who have attained that kind of wealth, many of whom helped propel his political career through donations or super PACs in his run for senator just two years ago — including venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya, PayPal developer David Sacks, and most notably, investor Peter Thiel.
Notably, Vance has failed to generate any positive momentum since being picked by the former president for the position. Indeed, during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, an Economist/YouGov poll found that he had a net favorability rating among registered voters of -4 points. In the nearly two months since that time, his rating has remained stagnant, at -5 points favorability.
Much of his difficulties stem from comments like the one Swift referenced, in which Vance expressed his preferences for a so-called “traditional” family structure in the United States — one that diminishes women’s role in society in favor of a stronger patriarchal system. Additional polling has revealed that the more voters learn about these kinds of statements, the less they like Vance as a candidate.
Those statements include telling people who choose to have smaller families or no children at all that they will become “sad, lonely, pathetic person[s],” as well as telling his right-wing supporters that they need “to go to war against” the beliefs of people who want to pursue that kind of life.