Left-wing media is accusing Fox News’ Jesse Watters of running a fake story about pop superstar sensation Taylor Swift.
On Thursday’s episode of Fox News’ “Jesse Watters Primetime,” the eponymous host played a clip of what he claimed were NATO officials discussing turning Swift into a psyop asset.
“Well, Taylor Swift’s the biggest star in the world,” he said of the star. “She’s been blanketed across the sports-media entertainment atmosphere. The New York Times just speculated she’s a lesbian. And last year’s tour broke Ticketmaster. A tour whose 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 Psychological Operations Unit floated turning Taylor Swift into an asset during a NATO meeting. What kind of asset? A psyop for combatting online misinformation,” he added.
Watters then played a clip from the alleged NATO meeting.
Watch:
The clip showed a woman speaking at the meeting about using social media influencers to “encourage or promote behavior change.”
“You came in here wanting to understand how you just go out and counter the information operation,” she said. “The idea is that social influence can help encourage or promote behavior change potentially as like a peaceful information operation.”
“I include Taylor Swift in here because she’s, you know, a fairly influential online person. I don’t know if you’ve heard of her,” she added.
After the clip concluded playing, Watters doubled down on his accusation.
“Yeah, that’s real,” he said. “Pentagon’s PsyOp unit pitched NATO on turning Taylor Swift into an asset.”
Except according to reports, it didn’t.
“[T]he woman giving the presentation was not a Pentagon employee,” according to Mediaite. “Her name is Alicia Marie Bargar, a research engineer in applied physics at Johns Hopkins University. In fact, none of the four speakers on stage worked for the Department of Defense or the United States government at all.”
“Bargar was joined by an employee of Mozilla, an officer in the British Army, and an assistant director at NATO. The talks were given as part of the organization’s International Conference on Cyber Conflict, or CYCON,” according to Mediaite.
Where did Watters pick up such a theory? Reportedly probably from former Trump administration official Mike Benz:
Watch the incredible moment that a rep from the Pentagon’s psychological operations research firm pitched NATO’s military psyops center on turning Taylor Swift into an asset for the Western military alliance to stop “disinformation” on the Internet. https://t.co/BYIordpx18 pic.twitter.com/ThXhnjiFMD
— Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) January 9, 2024
That said, aside from the theory being unproven, Watters and his guest, former FBI special agent Stuart Kaplan, speculated on how it could happen.
“In modern times, with these people having such influence and such, you know, an immeasurable amount of followers, she can potentially singlehandedly swing voters because of just the amount of followers that she potentially can influence,” Kaplan said.
“Yeah, because when she posted the link to Vote.org, like hundreds of thousands of young Taylor Swift fans all of a sudden registered to vote,” Watters replied, referencing her get out the vote efforts. “I wonder who got to her, from the White House or from wherever. Who makes that initial handshake? Is it the binder?”
Kaplan responded by pointing to the Biden administration’s “perception optics management team.”
“Those are professionals that go out and identify those people who may be unsuspecting, whether with knowledge or without knowledge, to do these types of campaigns,” he said. “Now it is quite possible, frankly, that Taylor Swift does not know that 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 the right information or misinformation, she can swing the voters,” he added.
Swift has been involving herself in politics since at least 2018, when she spoke out against the reelection of Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn:
A flop for Taylor Swift. Marsha Blackburn pulls significant lead in polls despite singer’s two cents https://t.co/sgHwKNczFY pic.twitter.com/9Gjw3NYImM
— BPR (@BIZPACReview) October 13, 2018
Despite the points made by Kaplan and Watters, they’re both now facing mockery from the left for entertaining the theory.
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.
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