Kathy Griffin Reveals Taylor Swift MAGA Fear

Kathy Griffin has revealed fears that Taylor Swift and her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, could face the wrath of MAGA supporters should she weigh in on this year's presidential election.

While she has been criticized in the past for publicly staying silent on the matter, Swift has become more politically outspoken over the years. The pop star endorsed President Joe Biden during his 2020 run for the White House, and has publicly criticized Republican Donald Trump.

MAGA—an acronym for Make America Great Again, the slogan used by Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign—has been used to describe devoted supporters of the former president.

With her political leanings in mind, Swift's influence has sparked a wave of unrelenting attacks of from some MAGA supporters. Ahead of Sunday's Super Bowl LVIII, many threatened to boycott the broadcast simply because she was expected to be present to support Kelce and his team, the Kansas City Chiefs.

After the Chiefs' victory over the San Francisco 49s, a faction of MAGA supporters then spread an unfounded conspiracy theory that the game was rigged because of Swift, and would precede an endorsement of Biden by the singer and Kelce.

Griffin weighed in on the issues Swift could face should she publicly endorse a candidate ahead of November's presidential election, which is expected to be a second Biden-Trump showdown.

On Super Bowl Sunday, MSNBC legal analyst Andrew Weissmann wrote on X, formerly Twitter: "Is it time for a certain singer to (Taylor) swift boat Trump?"

Popularized after John Kerry's unsuccessful 2004 presidential campaign, the term swift-boating is often used to describe an unfair or dishonest political attack.

The post sparked discussion among X users, with one sharing their theory that Swift "doesn't want to put the Kelces through all the MAGA threats and backlash. Which is so sad, to not be able to say who, whom you support but it is legit dangerous for her so."

"That's what I'm afraid of too," said Griffin, an outspoken Trump critic who faced backlash after posing with the severed head of an effigy of the then-president in 2017. She said that her decision to pose with the head damaged her career.

Trump himself was a prominent voice in the backlash against Griffin, writing on X at the time: "Kathy Griffin should be ashamed of herself. My children, especially my 11-year-old son, Barron, are having a hard time with this. Sick."

The gory image, which was taken by celebrity photographer Tyler Shields, sparked a widespread outcry, leading to comedian Griffin issuing a public apology.

She later retracted her apology, saying during an appearance on ABC's The View in 2018: "I take the apology back. F*** him... I'm not holding back on this family. This family is different. I've been through the mill."

"People thought I was ISIS," she continued. "When my mother called—she watches Fox News and thinks it's real and thinks Bill O'Reilly is on vacation—that day, as crazy as it was, I was in a ball, sobbing, everything's over[...]I had to spend two hours convincing my mom I hadn't been recruited by Al-Qaeda."

"My mom got death threats in her retirement village, and my sister got death threats in her hospital bed, and I lost her to cancer—that's why I shaved my head," Griffin added. "That's how vicious it can be."

More recently some MAGA supporters have erroneously linked Griffin to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was a convicted sex offender at the time of his death in 2019. Griffin is among a host of Democratic-supporting celebrities who have been falsely tied to Epstein. The large majority of public figures who have been named in recently unsealed Epstein files were not accused of any wrongdoing.

Meanwhile, Swift has proven herself to be quite the political force. On September 19, National Voter Registration Day, the singer took to Instagram to share a message urging her fans to register on the nonpartisan, nonprofit Vote.org. According to the organization, Swift's post was followed by a surge of more than 35,000 registrations—an almost 25 percent increase over the same day the previous year.

Andrea Hailey, the CEO of Vote.org, said in a statement that the single-day surge in registrations was a "highly encouraging sign of voter enthusiasm," particularly as there was a 115 percent spike over 2022 in newly eligible 18 year olds registering to vote.

Recent exclusive polling conducted for Newsweek by Redfield & Wilton Strategies found that 18 percent of voters say they're "more likely" or "significantly more likely" to vote for a candidate endorsed by Swift.

Seventeen percent said they would be less likely to vote for a Swift-backed candidate, while 55 percent would be neither more nor less likely to do so. Of all the respondents, 45 percent said they were fans of the singer, and 54 percent said they were not. Only 6 percent said they were not familiar with Swift.

The survey, which had a sample size of 1,500 eligible voters, was conducted on January 18 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.53 percent.

"Taylor Swift is a force," comedian and Democratic consultant Chip Franklin previously told Newsweek. "Her presence at NFL games has been a $330 million bonanza for both the Chiefs and the NFL."

"Swift's music taps into the angst and pressure young people are experiencing in this social media maelstrom, and combine that with her boyfriend—a handsome football star and pro-vax advocate—and you have an unprecedented whirlwind of cultural and political opinion," Franklin added.