To watch this Jesse Watters segment, please visit this link. We The People Radio on Instagram also shared the clip.
A note for the readers: I would embed the video in this article, but X, formerly known as Twitter, will not allow me to embed my own posts, as it says my account does not exist. Despite new Twitter chief Elon Musk purporting the idea of free speech, I have a search ban, NSFW ban, and deep shadow ban on my account. My profile shares news, meanwhile, there are pornographic accounts that have no bans.
Watters began, "Taylor Swift is the biggest star in the world, sorry Gutfeld. She's been blanketed across the sports entertainment atmosphere. The New York Times just speculated that she's a lesbian! Last year's tour broke TicketMaster.com... a tour that's revenue tops the GDP of 50 countries."
"I mean, I like her music, she's alright. But have you ever wondered why or how she blew up like this? Well around four years ago, the Pentagon's Psychological Operations Unit floated turning Taylor Swift into an asset during a NATO meeting. What kind of an asset? A psyop for combating online misinformation."
Watters then played the referenced clip from the NATO meeting on August 13, 2019. The presenter says, "The idea is that social influence can help encourage or promote behavior change, so potentially as a peaceful information operation. I include Taylor Swift in here because she's fairly influential online person, I don't know if you've heard of her."
"Yeah," Jesse comments "That's real. The Pentagon's Psyop Unit pitched NATO on turning Taylor Swift into an asset for combating misinformation online."
"This is nothing new. In the 1950s, the government strong-armed Louis Armstrong into doing propaganda tours across Africa. The CIA did the same thing with jazz singer Nina Simone, except they did it without her really knowing. In the 1970s, Nixon enlisted Elvis in his war on drugs. He gave the King a badge and named him a covert federal law enforcement agent. Michael Jackson was tapped by [Ronald] Reagan, using his song, "Beat It" and his public service campaigns against teen drinking and driving. Michael Jackson persuading minors not to drink."
Jesse Watters asks the audience, "So is Swift a front for a covert political agenda? Primetime obviously has no evidence, if we did, we'd share it. But we're curious. Because the pop star who endorsed Biden is urging millions of her followers to vote. She's sharing links. And her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, sponsored by Pfizer? And their relationship boosted the NFL ratings this season, bringing in a whole new demographic."
"So how's the psyop going? Well, as usual, Biden's not calling the shots because he doesn't even know who Taylor Swift is. He's confused her with Britney Spears and Beyoncé.
Watters then played a clip of Biden confusing Swift with the aforementioned pop stars, prior to bringing out his guest, former FBI agent Stuart Kaplan.
"Stuart, is this feasible?"
Kaplan replies, "Jesse, the deployment of a psyop in the United States in this day and age is still illegal. The National Security law prohibits the deployment of psyops or using an operative for psychological warfare. However, if I was running Biden's Management Perception team, I would identify someone who would align themselves with my agenda such as Taylor Swift, who has close to 600 million followers. I would target her, I would engage her, and I would get her to do what we used to see as like public service announcements. And that type of enlistment, that type of solicitation, is analogous to the old days of deployment of a psyop. And so in modern times, with these people having such influence and such immeasurable amount of followers, she can potentially, single-handedly swing voters because of just the amount of followers that she can potentially influence. So the answer is yes, Jesse."
"Yeah, because when she posted the link to Vote.org, it was like hundreds of thousands of Taylor Swift fans all of a sudden registered to vote. I wonder who got to her from the White House or from wherever. Who makes that initial handshake? Is it "The Binder"?"
"The administration has what they consider a Perception Optics Management team," Kaplan explains "Those are professionals that go out and identify those people who may be unsuspecting, whether with knowledge or without knowledge, to do these type of campaigns."
Kaplan continues, "Now it is possible that Taylor Swift does not know she is being utilized in a covert manner to swing voters, but the bottom line is that the Biden administration is savvy identifying how many followers and how many voters potentially she can influence with either right information or misinformation, she can certainly swing the voters."