Culture

Pop superstar Taylor Swift made it abundantly clear to her followers who she will be voting for in November, and conservative pundit Megyn Kelly is refusing to “Shake It Off.”
In the newest episode of her YouTube series The Megyn Kelly Show, the former Fox News host harshly criticized Swift for supporting Vice President Kamala Harris’ bid for the presidency this November. Reading out Swift’s full statement posted to her Instagram, Kelly immediately impugned the singer’s character and spread misinformation surrounding some of Harris and Gov. Tim Walz’s proposed policies.

“I’m allowed to criticize Taylor Swift, and I don’t give a sh– who gets upset. This is disgusting,” she said. “If she wants to vote Harris-Walz, she can do it all she wants but to say the reason she is doing it is because of Tim Walz’s stance on LGBTQ? F you, Taylor Swift. And F all of the people who want to see these children have body parts chopped off and watch them sterilized under the age of consent and then will ride off to their multi-gazillion-dollar mansions.”

The conservative host then included Swift’s boyfriend Travis Kelce in her criticism (despite the fact that Kelce has yet to publicly endorse a candidate in the election), calling the couple the “epitomes of elite snobs” before claiming that the two are not in touch with politics.

“They both have gazillions of dollars,” she said, before adding in anti-vaccine sentiment to the mix. “She doesn’t care what happens to these kids, just like he [Kelce] doesn’t give a sh– what happens to all the young men who take the Pfizer booster he’s been pushing on them.”

Billboard has reached out to Swift’s representatives for comment.

Kelly had previously criticized Kelce for posting an advertisement with Pfizer, where the tight end encouraged fans to get their COVID-19 booster shots. The host claimed that COVID-19 vaccines put youth at greater risk for myocarditis — the CDC, though, says that those who contract COVID-19 are far more likely to contract myocarditis, and that “myocarditis after COVID-19 vaccination is rare.”

Kelly’s complaint about children having “body parts chopped off” is part of a larger GOP trend of advocating against gender-affirming care for transgender youth. While many pundits and politicians (including former president and Republican nominee Donald Trump) claim that this kind of care involves children routinely having their genitals operated on, experts in the field say surgical intervention is not recommended for minors.

“Genital reconstruction surgery is typically reserved for adults,” Dr. Joshua D. Safer, MD, executive director of the Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery, explained to Billboard in 2022. “Prior to any gender-affirming medical or surgical intervention, all minors must have an intake with a knowledgeable mental health provider internal to our system. Once deemed ready for a medical/surgical intervention, the processes we have for adults are then brought into play.”

In her endorsement of Harris, Swift praised the vice president as a “steady-handed, gifted leader” who “fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them.” She added that she was “heartened” by Gov. Walz, thanks to his decades-long support for “LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body.

See Megyn Kelly’s rant below:

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