Former president Donald Trump is yet again causing controversy when he inaccurately implied that pop singer Taylor Swift had endorsed him in the 2024 presidential race. Trump used fake photos of Swift and her followers purportedly endorsing him on social media. “I accept!” was the message he put on one of the photos. These photos, many of which appeared to be created with artificial intelligence, deceived some viewers and infuriated Swift’s ardent following, known as the “Swifties.”
The post featured pictures of Swift fans sporting “Swifties for Trump” t-shirts along with a spoof headline that suggested Swift’s supporters were shifting their allegiance to Trump in response to an ISIS plot to stop one of her shows. This statement was made soon after Swift postponed three shows in Vienna over concerns about a possible security breach, which resulted in the apprehension of two people for allegedly plotting assaults with ISIS inspiration.
Another doctored image that Trump shared mimicked a World War One recruitment poster, replacing Uncle Sam’s face with Taylor Swift’s, urging people to vote for Trump. NBC News later confirmed that at least two women featured in the images were genuine Trump supporters, but the overall context of the posts was misleading.
Although Swift openly backed the Democratic Party in 2020 and vocally opposed Trump during his presidency, she has not endorsed any candidate for the 2024 election. Swift tweeted, “After stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism your entire presidency, you have the nerve to feign moral superiority before threatening violence?” in response to Trump’s behavior during the George Floyd protests.
This instance draws attention to a larger pattern of political narrative manipulation through the use of deepfake images. Similar fake photos of black Trump fans surfaced earlier this year, as the BBC reported, albeit there was no evidence linking them to the president’s campaign.
