Donald Trump reacted with uncharacteristic grace and poise to the news that Taylor Swift is voting for Democrats in her traditionally red home state of Tennessee in November’s midterm elections. Reporters caught up with the president outside of the White House on Monday afternoon to find out how the typically combative POTUS was handling Swift’s rare political endorsement of Democratic Senate candidate Phil Bredesen, the challenger of GOP Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn. Swift mentioned the far right wing Blackburn by name in an Instagram post explaining why she decided to wade into the political discourse.
“Marsha Blackburn is doing a very good job now in Tennessee,” Trump told reporters. “She’s leading now substantially, which she should. She’s a tremendous woman. I’m sure Taylor Swift doesn’t know anything about her. Let’s say I like Taylor’s music about 25 percent less now, okay?”
In 2012, Trump gushed over Swift several times, calling her “terrific” and “fantastic.”
@taylorswift13 Thanks for the beautiful picture— you are fantastic!
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— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 1, 2012
Glad to hear that @taylorswift13 will be co-hosting the Grammy nominations special on 12.5. Taylor is terrific!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 30, 2012
Trump’s response was fairly tame considering how he typically maligns people who publicly disagree with or challenge him. In this case, Swift has 112 million Instagram followers—enough to, in theory, influence people to vote for the party that could wrest control of the House away from the GOP—and he didn’t even call her a loser, or come up with some dumb, alliterative nickname.
“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,” Swift wrote in her IG caption. “As much as I have in the past and would like to continue voting for women in office, I cannot support Marsha Blackburn.”
Really, 25 percent isn’t that bad.
