Fox News Came Up With Such a Wild Taylor Swift Conspiracy — Even Pentagon Had to 'Shake it Off'

Taylor Swift was caught up in a viral conspiracy theory when Fox News anchor Jesse Watters put forward an odd hypothesis just before the elections. As per Politico, Watters claimed that the iconic pop star could be “a front for a covert political agenda.” He continued to assert on his Jesse Watters Primetime show that “around four years ago, the Pentagon’s psychological operations unit floated turning Taylor Swift into an asset.” He then played a video from a 2019 NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence conference, in which a speaker seemed to mention Swift just as an illustration of a strong influencer. 

“It’s real. The Pentagon psyop unit pitched NATO on turning Taylor Swift into an asset for combating misinformation online,” Watters proposed further. However, the Pentagon refuted the wild claims, “As for this conspiracy theory, we are going to shake it off. But that does highlight that we still need Congress to approve our supplemental budget request as Swift-ly as possible so we can be out of the woods with potential fiscal concerns," spokesperson Sabrina Singh stated referring to Swift's hit song Shake It Off. 

Additionally, Watters attempted to assert that Swift's encouragement of her followers to cast ballots was evidence of her connections to the US government. The Blank Space hitmaker has often encouraged her enormous fan base to register to vote. According to CNBC, in 2018 about 65,000 Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 registered to vote in the 24 hours following Swift's social media call to action, as reported by Vote.org.

Approximately 64,000 Americans aged 30 and older registered during the roughly next 48-hour period, a rise in young registrations that greatly outstripped the total of all other age groups. 

In 2023, she posted the link to register with a message on her Instagram Stories, "I've been so lucky to see so many of you guys at my U.S. shows recently. I've heard you raise your voices, and I know how powerful they are," she wrote. "Make sure you're ready to use them in our elections this year!" As per NPR, the nonpartisan group registered over 35,000 voters after her election day note. The organization reported that the 35,252 new registrations were a 23% increase over the previous year and the highest since 2020. There were more than twice as many 18-year-olds registered than there were in 2022. 

Andrea Hailey, CEO of Vote.org stated that Swift was a positive influence in the right direction for young voters. "Time and time again young people are showing up and demonstrating they care about their rights and access to the ballot box," Hailey said. Hundreds of thousands of people visited voter registration sites after Swift endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in September. 

As per The New York Times, a General Services Administration spokesman stated that in the 24 hours following the posting of the link, about 406,000 individuals clicked on it. Over half of the approximately 727,000 visitors to Vote.gov came from that link. The organization recorded over 30,000 visitors every day on average, from September 3 to 9. It demonstrated Swift's celebrity status and ability to sway the next generation of voters.