Former FBI director James Comey has surprised many by confessing that Taylor Swift’s music has become his “coping mechanism” while facing renewed hostility from Donald Trump. The 64 year old, who was fired by Trump in 2017, posted a formal video on his Substack on Sunday where he praised Swift as “a truly inspirational public figure” and admitted he follows her career closely.
“Taylor Swift and I go way back,” he said. “I went to my first concert of hers 15 years ago. I’ve been to a second and I have helped financially support the attendance of a lot of family members and others. I’m in a family’s Swiftie group chat. I know all her music, and I listen to it in my headphones when I cut the grass.” He also said he had of course watched her recent interview with the Kelce brothers, reported Fox News.
The revelation was quickly mocked by Trump loyalists online. MAGA commentators Benny Johnson and Dinesh D’Souza ridiculed the video, pointing to Comey’s previous controversies, including an Instagram post earlier this summer where he arranged seashells into the number “8647,” which sparked conspiracy theories that it was a coded call for Trump’s assassination and led to a Justice Department review.
Comey said his favourite Swift songs are the ten minute version of “All Too Well” and “Exile” featuring Bon Iver. He described her music as the soundtrack to his family’s life and praised her for creating “great art” and being a role model for his children. Using Swift as a springboard, he went on to speak about how to resist political bullying. “Like a lot of you, I struggle with how to stand up to bullies without letting their meanness infect me and change me,” he said.
Referencing California governor Gavin Newsom’s habit of parodying Trump’s social media posts, Comey admitted he sometimes found it hilarious but also worrying. “I don’t want us to become like Trump and his followers,” he said. “There are far more decent, honest, kind people in America than there are mean jerks, and don’t get me wrong, we have our jerks, millions of them. You may have noticed! In particular, there’s a stunning coarseness and ugliness in the Republican Party today. It’s upsetting, but it’s also a minority of America. On the whole, we aren’t like that and we don’t like that.”
Comey added that Swift had “made clear that she sees Donald Trump for what he is,” noting her endorsements of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in recent elections. “While our elderly, makeup-covered president is posting about whether Taylor Swift is still ‘hot’ and declaring that he can’t stand her, what’s she doing? Living her best life, producing great music, and, as she urged all of us to do during the podcast, not giving the jerks power over her mind.”
He closed by quoting lyrics from Swift’s 2010 track “Mean” as his personal anthem: “I bet you got pushed around, somebody made you cold, but the cycle ends right now, because you can’t lead me down that road.”
Meanwhile, Tulsi Gabbard, now serving as director of national intelligence, has moved to refer Comey and other Obama-era officials for prosecution over allegations they fabricated intelligence to back claims that Russia meddled in the 2016 election to help Trump beat Hillary Clinton.