JD Vance reacts to Taylor Swift and fails the self-confidence test

Not long after Vice President Kamala Harris dominated the debate against Donald Trump, the Democratic candidate received more good news: Pop star Taylor Swift issued a written statement supporting her candidacy in 2024.

Predictably, much of the right did not react positively to the news. Various far-right media personalities threw tantrums online; conspiracy-theorist billionaire Elon Musk posted a creepy message on the social media platform he bought; and Trump whined on Fox News, predicting that the entertainer would “probably pay a price for this… in the marketplace.”

It's worth noting that Swift also endorsed Joe Biden's candidacy four years ago – and as my MSNBC colleague Hayley Miller noted, “She's arguably more popular today than she's ever been.”

What was particularly astonishing, however, was the reaction of Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance. Just a few hours after the former president's tirade, the senator from Ohio shared the following message on Fox News:

He added that “food prices” had not caused any “harm” to the star.

Putting aside for the moment the fact that food inflation has already cooled considerably in recent months, let us instead consider the latest in a series of examples of Team Trump failing self-awareness tests.

Americans are unlikely to be influenced by a prominent billionaire who has fundamentally no connection to the interests and problems of most Americans? Unless Trump plans to drop out of the 2024 presidential race, Vance's running mate is a prominent billionaire who has fundamentally no connection to the interests and problems of most Americans.

In fact, it was particularly interesting that the Republican senator mentioned Swift and grocery prices because Trump has repeatedly made public statements suggesting he has no idea how grocery stores even work, including suggesting that he believes consumers should be required to show ID when buying boxes of cereal.

In other words, Vance should probably come up with a different attack strategy against Swift.

As for the entertainer's impact, the General Services Administration confirmed to NBC News that by midday Wednesday, more than 337,000 people visited a custom URL Swift posted on Instagram. The custom URL directs people to vote.gov, a website that helps people register to vote.