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In 146 days, Americans will head to the polls to decide the next president and cast their votes for countless other national and local races and initiatives. Now, several music nonprofits are looking to make the industry’s presence felt on Nov. 5 via the launch of a new voter engagement coalition, Music Votes. Composed of […]
Donald Trump is a fan of Taylor Swift‘s appearance, but not so much her politics. As for her music? He’s pretty indifferent.
The twice-impeached former U.S. president shared his thoughts on the pop star in a new book titled Apprentice in Wonderland: How Donald Trump and Mark Burnett Took America Through the Looking Glass, an excerpt of which Variety published Monday (June 10). “I think she’s beautiful — very beautiful!” he says of Swift in the snippet. “I find her very beautiful.”
“I think she’s liberal,” the ex-POTUS continued in conversation with Variety co-editor-in-chief Ramin Setoodeh, who wrote the book. “She probably doesn’t like Trump. I hear she’s very talented. I think she’s very beautiful, actually — unusually beautiful!”
As Trump has clearly noticed, Swift has been open for years about her left-leaning political views. She first broke her decade-plus-long silence on the matter about two years after the 77-year-old reality star-turned-politician was elected to the White House in 2016, endorsing Tennessee Democratic candidates Phil Bredesen for Senate and Jim Cooper for House of Representatives in a 2018 Instagram post.
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When asked about the endorsement at the time, the then-president told reporters, “Let’s just say I like Taylor’s music about 25% less now, OK?” Bredesen ended up losing to Republican Marsha Blackburn — whom Swift called “Trump in a wig” in her 2020 Netflix film Miss Americana — while Cooper kept his seat.
“She is liberal, or is that just an act?” Trump, who is currently awaiting sentencing after being found guilty of 34 charges of falsifying business records last month, asked Setoodeh in the new interview. “She’s legitimately liberal? It’s not an act? It surprises me that a country star can be successful being liberal.”
Finally, when asked about the “Anti-Hero” singer’s music, Trump simply replied, “Don’t know it well.”
Billboard has reached out Taylor Swift’s representatives for comment.
The interview — which took place in November 2023 — isn’t the only time Trump has spoken about Swift in recent months. In a Daily Caller interview in September, he quipped about the star’s romance with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. “I wish the best for both of them. I hope they enjoy their life, maybe together, maybe not — most likely not,” he said.
A few months later, he bragged on Truth Social about signing The Music Modernization Act during his presidency. “Joe Biden didn’t do anything for Taylor, and never will,” he wrote in February, touching on Swift’s support of the current president’s White House bid in 2020. “There’s no way she could endorse Crooked Joe Biden, the worst and most corrupt President in the History of our Country, and be disloyal to the man who made her so much money.”
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Rev. Al Sharpton is known for his direct line of questioning and no-nonsense approach as the host of his PoliticsNation program. Recently, Rev. Al Sharpton welcomed Rep. Byron Donalds to the program to challenge the Republican Party congressman about his recent quip regarding Jim Crow and Black families but was frustrated in the process.
Rep. Bryon Donalds, who represents Florida’s 19th District, was a guest on PoliticsNation which came after the congressman joined MSNBC host Joy Reid on her program where he defended the explosive claims that Black marriage rates were better under the time of Jim Crow, ignoring the oppressive and racist policy altogether.
More alarming was Rep. Donalds made this statement during a Black voter outreach event in Philadelphia in support of Republican Party presidential frontrunner, Donald Trump. What Reid attempted to do when she spoke with Donalds was allow him to explain the correlation between Jim Crow and stronger Black families but it appeared that the congressman couldn’t effectively connect the two.
Donalds again joined MSNBC over the weekend to speak with Rev. Al Sharpton and much like his appearance on The Reid Out, Donalds bobbed and weaved but would not explain why he thought things were better for the Black family unit under Jim Crow despite the fact many of these Black families did not enjoy rights that white families freely enjoyed.
At one point, Sharpton asked Donalds how he could live with himself after making such claims and Donalds became exasperated as he tried to dance out of the question by trying to suggest that all he meant was the Black marriage rate was higher but not that Jim Crow was better for them.
Both appearances by Rep. Byron Donalds on MSNBC can be viewed below.
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The White House’s Pride Month festivities won’t be featuring an appearance from the Midwest Princess this year. During her performance at the 2024 Governor’s Ball Sunday (June 9), Chappell Roan told the crowd that she turned down the Biden administration’s invitation for her to perform in honor of the LGBTQ community this June, shortly before […]
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Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) is having a terrible week when it comes to his tryouts to be the running mate of convicted felon and GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump. On two separate networks, CNN and MSNBC, Donalds saw his hypocrisy get called out to his face.
In case you’re unaware, recently while in Philadelphia, Donalds went full Uncle Tom and infamously said that Black people were better off under Jim Crow. That would be the same Jim Crow era where Blacks in Southern states were disenfranchised (read: they couldn’t even vote), routinely lynched for the most minor of offenses and pretty much lived in terror for simply trying to live.
“You see, during Jim Crow, the Black family was together. During Jim Crow, more Black people were not just conservative — Black people have always been conservative-minded — but more Black people voted conservatively,” Donalds said, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.
As expected, and after a rebuke from Democrats including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Donalds insisted his words were taken out of context.
Considering his documented tomfoolery, booking Donalds already gets you the side eye, but at least the Black women asking the questions, in this case Joy Reid and Abby Phillip, held his tap dancing feet to the fire.
Let’s start on CNN, where Phillip was first to make Donalds a spokesman for Team Ya Played Yourself. While appearing on CNN’s Newsnight on Wednesday evening (June 5), he conceded that Black people are better off now but insisted that marriage rates were higher for Blacks during Jim Crow, so there’s that. “All I was doing is referring to the time periods when you talk about the historical timelines in America and coinciding with Black families and what their marriage rate in Black families are,” he said.
Yeah, okay, that’s what he meant—#sarcasm. Then Donalds went into suspect GOP talking point mode by claiming Donald Trump’s policies have served Black Americans better than Biden’s, adding, “If you’re actually going to compare economic policies and public policies between the 45th president and 46 president, it’s without question, they were better under the 45th.”
To this, Phillip had to retort. “I’m going to interrupt you on the facts, Congressmen,” she said. “The Black unemployment rate was the lowest in American history under Joe Biden…. The poverty rate for Black people is the lowest under Joe Biden’s [administration]. So you cannot say empirically for Black people that from a financial level things were better under Trump.”
Donalds then started flapping his gums about inflation and wealth that amounted to copping pleas. But the real burn came courtesy of Joy Reid. On Thursday evening (June 6), while on MSNBC’s The Reid Out, Donalds again insisted he was initially misquoted about the Jim Crow comments.
“The stuff that comes up about Jim Crow, and twisting my words saying I was being nostalgic or Jim Crow was good for Black people, that’s all political spin. It’s a lie,” said Donalds. “It’s gaslighting and that’s truly unfortunate.”
Reid then replied with receipts. “Here’s the challenge, Congressman,” she said. “You started out talking about your family, talking about your mom, talking about being raised. And you on your own brought up Jim Crow. In fact, you said Jim Crow three times for emphasis. It wasn’t the media or the Democrats or gaslighters who brought up Jim Crow. It was you. You brought up Jim Crow. So why did you use Jim Crow specifically as your reference? You did that, no one else did that, you did it.”
The conversation continued with Reid pointing out this controversy was Donalds’ own doing, but she saved the real burn for the end of their chat. “Last question, and then I’m going to let you go. One more question,” said Reid. “During Jim Crow, could your family have existed? You are in an interracial marriage. Your wife, and a white conservative activist. Could your family have existed at all during Jim Crow?”
Got ’em.
“No, it could not, and we all know that,” said Donalds. “That’s why I’m blessed to live in America today, as opposed to America during that time. But we cannot ignore the realities of not having fathers in homes. That is important to our Black people today and all people today as we move forward toward a better America.”
Donalds has been getting cooked on social media ever since. You can see for yourself in the gallery. below Be careful, the MAGA cult is foaming at the mouth defending their latest Op of color, respectfully.
15. Also, let’s never forget.
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At this point, it couldn’t be more abundantly clear that if the Sunken Place has a deeper sunken place within itself, that’s where South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott resides.
Scott recently made an appearance on CNN so he could continue his pity party tour on behalf of Donald Trump and the 34 felonies he was found guilty of at the end of his hush money trial in New York. According to the Grio, Scott joined the chorus line of angry MAGA minions who claim Trump’s prosecution was about politics, not the law. Scott claimed the charges of falsifying business records were “the weaponization of the justice system” by President Joe Biden, despite the glaring fact that neither Biden nor his administration have anything to do with charges brought on anyone by the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
But Scott’s fact-averse diatribe didn’t end there. He also continued his stale, whitey-pleasing narrative that “America is not a racist country” and that the real discrimination is being leveled against Republicans.
“The reason why we’re seeing so many African Americans coming to the Trump campaign — two big reasons: jobs and justice,” Scott told CNN host Phil Mattingly. “I’ll say simply, as an African American born and raised in the Deep South who had concerns about our justice system as it relates to race, I’m now seeing it play out from a partisan perspective. It’s not as much Black and white as it is red and blue.”
Riiiiight.
Let’s start with the fact that it’s untrue that there has been anything more than a slight uptick in “African Americans” who are “coming to the Trump campaign.”
From the Grio:
Polling reveals that most African American voters still support the Democratic Party. According to the Pew Research Center, a majority of Black voters — 83% — lean Democratic. Pew’s polling also reveals that 72% of Black voters say Trump was a “poor or terrible president.”
While we’re here, let’s get into Scott and the rest of the MAGA GOP’s false assertion that Trump was prosecuted for crimes no one is normally prosecuted for, which supposedly proves the prosecution was political.
From NewsOne:
Last year, Just Security posted a 24-page survey detailing dozens of New York prosecutions over the last decade for falsifying business records in the first degree, which was the top charge leveled against Trump. According to NBC New York, “Records from the New York Division of Criminal Justice Services show 10 years ago, 101 people were arrested in New York City in cases where the top charge was falsification of business records.”
In 2022, only 39 people faced that top charge, but the fact that none of those people were named Donald Trump still indicates he wasn’t given a custom-made charge that only he could catch. Now, to be fair, prosecutions for falsifying business records did increase by a lot when Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg took office, but that doesn’t help Republicans’ “only Trump” narrative since that increase also didn’t include defendants named Donald Trump.
NBC also reported that during “Bragg’s first 15 months as DA, his team filed 166 felony counts for falsifying business records against 34 people or companies.” Again, none of those individuals or business were beared the name Trump. In fact, the only didfference between Trump and those other defendants is that when those other defendants were charged with similar crimes, Republicans didn’t care.
As far as Scott’s wannabe-white nonsense regarding how the division in America is “not as much Black and white as it is red and blue,” he has been on that shuck-and-jivery since long before Trump was ever indicted on any crimes.
For years now, Scott has repeatedly claimed “America is not a racist country”—despite all the data that says otherwise—while out of the other side of his neck, he has repeatedly compared the treatment of Republicans to anti-Black racism, which he apparently doesn’t think exists in any substantial way. This is also the umteenth time he has compared Trump’s trial to anti-Black injustice in the court system, which, again, he doesn’t really believe exists.
It’s unclear why Scott is even bothering to pretend he has ever publicly “had concerns about our justice system as it relates to race,” but it is clear that the only Black Republican in the U.S. Senate—and the only one to represent South Carolina in the state’s history (nothing racist about that though, right?)—has dedicated himself to loving up on Trump, absolving America of its white supremacist ways, and making Republicans the new N-words.
Yes, Scott is delusional. No, he doesn’t deal in facts. Yes, white conservatives love him for it—and that might be the point.
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Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson is considered one of the savviest business minds in modern times as evidenced by his various holdings. 50 Cent recently visited Capitol Hill to discuss the lack of representation of Black-owned liquor companies in the adult beverage industry.
50 Cent was in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday (June 5) as seen on his Instagram page. According to The Hill, Fif’s visit was a surprise to the members of Congress, which centered on the rapper and mogul angling to increase opportunities for prospective Black adult beverage entrepreneurs.
Flanked by attorney Ben Crump, 50, who owns Sire Spirits, wants to see Black adult beverage companies reaping some of the financial benefits of the lucrative industry.
“My experience here has been great,” 50 Cent said at a press conference following his chat with Congress. “I went to talk to them about economic opportunities for everybody, and it’s really exciting. The response I got makes me feel like that there’s bright days ahead of us.”
Sire Spirits produces Branson Cognac and Le Chemin du Roi Champagne among other holdings, and the space is widening with several key figures such as Uncle Nearest’s Fawn Weaver and others putting their stamp down via their respective ventures.
At the conclusion of the chat, 50 took to Instagram and shared several photos alongside several politicians, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, Congresswoman Nekima Williams, Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, and Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi.
Some fans were taken aback by Fif flicking it up with Rep. Boebert and Speaker Johnson considering they’re both members of the Republican Party, and most especially Boebert who has held controversial conservative views.
For what it’s worth, Fif has heard the complaints and replied in his usual trolling fashion.
It appears that Fif was aware of the dissension in Congress after remarking in his presser that Democrats and Republicans hardly agree on anything but was glad they decided to speak with him about the issue.
While 50 Cent didn’t take a political position during his time on Capitol Hill, some fans online are saying he linked up with the opps and are somewhat dragging his name through the mud. We’re highlighting those comments from X, formerly Twitter, below.
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Photo: Tom Williams / Getty
50 Cent is one to look right in the eye of the storm when it comes to controversy. Even at 48 years old, it’s nearly impossible to predict how he’s going to react in certain social situations. With that said, the G-Unit boss made an appearance at Capitol Hill on Wednesday (June 5), where 50 spent the day rubbing elbows with various politicians from both parties — including Lauren Boebert and Nancy Pelosi — while advocating for more Black representation in the luxury spirits business.
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“My experience here has been great,” 50 told The Hill. “I went to talk to them about economic opportunities for everybody, and it’s really exciting. The response I got makes me feel like that there’s bright days ahead of us.”
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50 is the owner of his Sire Spirits brand, where his lucrative Branson Cognac lives within his spirits empire. He appeared alongside attorney Ben Crump in hopes of seeing more Black entrepreneurs follow in his footsteps in the alcohol industry.
The “Many Men” rapper was a popular guy on campus, as many politicians wanted a piece of the rap mogul. He posted and reposted photos with former Speaker of the House Pelosi, which sparked outrage from some of his fans on social media.
“The pic with Nancy P was the most terrifying,” one person replied.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, left, and his attorney Ben Crump Crump pose for a picture at the U.S. Capitol before a news conference about increasing “minority representation in the multibillion dollar luxury spirits industry,” on June 5, 2024.
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Other photos throughout the day posted to his X timeline include appearances from House Speaker Mike Johnson, Congressman Troy Carter, Congressman Steve Scalise, Rep. Joyce Beatty, Congressmen Wesley Hunt and Nick LaLota and more.
However, there was one photo that caused more of a stir on social media than the others. That one found 50 posing alongside controversial Rep. Lauren Boebert. “Lauren Boebert, Colorado Republican making the white house look good,” he captioned the photo on X.
Boebert returned the favor giving him a shout-out on social media while quoting lyrics from his debut album classic “21 Questions,” which not many had on their 2024 bingo card. “I’d still love you if you flipped burgers at Burger King @50Cent, I used to do that myself! Thanks for the photo, great to meet you,” she tweeted.
While fans were in an uproar seeing Boebert with 50, he attempted to calm the backlash and joked about her infamously being kicked out of a Beetlejuice musical in Denver last September for “causing a disturbance” amid speculation of her vaping and getting intimate.
“You don’t do your research,” one fan asked, as another questioned his decision-making skills. “He better be careful with this one.”
“Wait, wait, guys i took pictures with everyone and all you seem to care about is Lauren what did she do in a dark theater that hasn’t been done, my God,” 50 responded. “Hey I don’t have chlamydia by the way. LOL.”
The grind doesn’t stop for 50 Cent, as he’ll be in NYC on Thursday (June 6) for the premiere of Power Book II: Ghost, with part one of the final season set to hit Starz on Friday (June 7).
Jason Aldean and his wife Brittany Aldean shared their reactions after former president (and current presidential nominee) Donald Trump’s conviction on 34 felony charges. The Trump verdict marks the first criminal conviction of a former president in U.S. history. The “Try That in a Small Town” singer shared a photo on Instagram of an upside […]
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Elon Musk is allowing his X platform to host a series of town hall events featuring presidential hopefuls Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. according to those familiar with the planning of the events. Although Musk hasn’t officially announced the events, Kennedy seemingly confirmed that he will be part of the town halls.
Via a report from Axios, sources close to the events shared with the outlet Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy will be part of the town halls that will reportedly air live on X, formerly known as Twitter. Further, X and NewsNation, a network known for emphasizing conservative-leaning talking points, will work in partnership to bring the event to the masses.
It would serve as the X platform’s largest foray into the world of politics despite Musk not taking a position on either candidate. So far, moderators are still being sought out and users on X will be able to question the candidates during the event. Moderators will approve questions from viewers
Kennedy has stirred up controversies due to his unique views despite hailing from a legendary family in Democratic Party politics. Kennedy is also a staunch critic of Dr. Anthony Fauci and the COVID-19 vaccine efforts among other controversial takes.
Trump is also surrounded by controversy after the former president and business mogul was found guilty by a jury in New York on 34 counts via his hush money trial that concluded on Thursday (May 30).
Campaign managers for both Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have not confirmed the participation of the candidates.
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