The Chris Cuomo Project - Is Taylor Swift Rigging the 2024 Election? Controversy or Nontroversy?

Episode Date: February 8, 2024

Chris Cuomo analyzes controversies in the news and determines if they deserve the attention or are being overblown in the latest in installment of Controversy/Nontroversy." This week, he looks at conspiracy theories claiming Taylor Swift is helping rig the 2024 election, the increasing political polarization between young men and women, and more. Join Chris Ad-Free On Substack: http://thechriscuomoproject.substack.com Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday: https://linktr.ee/cuomoproject Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Taylor Swift is an obvious Biden plant. Controversy or nontroversy? No, just plain crazy. I'm Chris Cuomo, and welcome to a special for the Chris Cuomo Project, Controversy or Nontroversy, which involves the inimitable, daddy-to-be Gregory Ott, where we go through a list of what's going on and making people think,

and whether I think it's worthy of the thinkery that it is receiving. Thank you for subscribing, following, checking us out on News Nation every weekday night at eight and 11 p, the sub stack, if you want this podcast ad free, or you wanna be part of the conversation that is growing around long covid the chris cuomo project.substack.com so well what do you have let's get into this thinkery that you're alluding to uh you start with not a

word you use often no it isn't but i i'm not i've never been accused of thinking before so i i'll i'll let that slide. We'll start with the Taylor Swift conspiracy that you alluded to up top. This is from CBS News. Myriad baseless rumors emerged on social media. Everything from claims that Swift has played a part in Pentagon psychological operations to the idea that she and her two-time Super Bowl champion boyfriend are key assets in a secret plot to help President Biden get elected in 2024. Another variant, the Chiefs' success was rigged as part of the plan for the game

on February 11th in Las Vegas. That game being, I believe, the Super Bowl of football, National Football League. So all of this bizarre attention on Taylor Swift. Do you find this to be a controversy or a non-troversy? I'm going to surprise you. Controversy. Oh, I am actually surprised. And I'll telltroversy? I'm going to surprise you. Controversy. Oh, I am actually surprised. And I'll tell you why. Because I'm a Bills fan. And I knew those Chiefs were cheating. I thought you were a Jets fan. I am, but I hate the Jets. And my plan is, if I say I hate them, they will spite me by getting good. Hasn't worked yet. But I've always been a Bills fan, two reasons. One, nobody's not a Bills a bills fan and two they're the only team that

actually plays in new york well they had a great running back years ago i don't know what he went on to do but he was fantastic well you know i i know that they were chasing him at some point oj simpson thank you orenthal james now here's why it's a controversy. Not because I believe any of this bullshit, because that's what it is. Shame on the media for milking this. This is fringe, stupid social media stuff, okay? But they're playing to it anyway. Why?

Demonize Trump supporters. Demonize the right fringe. Do some deserve it? Yeah, not to be demonized but to be criticized absolutely uh but the media keeps making the same mistake where trump is involved which is putting everybody in the same basket and it's also a controversy because we have too many people in this society that are susceptible to stories like this and i I was very happy that Colin Cowherd said on his show, you know, he's a sports guy. He's not a political guy. What does it say about you that you're bothered by Taylor Swift because of your perception of her politics? And let me tell you something.

A lot of you Chiefs fans slash football fans, you were going bad on Tee Swift in the beginning or Tay-Tay or whatever you call her because you guys dropped a couple of games. You dropped a couple of games because you didn't have it together. But you're lucky you got that quarterback, boy. Let me tell you something. And a couple other pieces.

And now you're winning all these games. All of a sudden, she's your good luck charm. Look, who cares who your players are dating? I'll tell you who. Anybody who cares about celebrities. And we are obsessed with celebrities. They're our royalty. You have the biggest pop star, arguably, in the world,

dating, you know, this, you know, he's an amazing football player. Madonna's dating OJ? Please, Travis Kelsey. And people are going to care. And that's okay. That's fine. That's our culture.

The idea that it's distracting from the game, please get over yourself. The game is a distraction. So it is a controversy, but not because Taylor Swift is part of the deep state. Have you seen this recent poll or something that showed the polarization between I think people under the age of 30

broken down by men and women and the split gender-wise of how they are going politically, how younger women are drifting very far to the left and younger men are drifting very far to the right. I'm wondering if you could lay some thoughts onto this issue with that in mind, because I'm thinking of like Kyle Hurd

and all these other guys are talking about these like incel type guys who can't handle, you know, a prominent young woman being very famous and ruining their manly game of football or whatever. And I can't help but think that plays into this like polarization that's happening among a generation that is like kind of bifurcating because like dating has gotten really weird. So as you get out of the paradigm that this is a non-troversy and here's why. that this is a non-troversy. And here's why.

As you get out of the paradigm of man marries woman and woman does what man says, you're going to see people acting individually when it comes to their politics and their lives. That's good. Two, women are dealing with something that I don't think men can even fathom. And I'm not just talking about childbirth, but can you imagine if the state made a determination that whether directly or

indirectly, depending on how you decide to see it, affected what you can do with your body? Can you imagine, like, look, if you want to follow it to a logical absurdity, what if we decide we got too many people and we decide that men should have vasectomies? Would never happen. Why? Because men wouldn't allow it. But why should it happen if you're okay with Dobbs and the restriction of reproductive rights by not having a national mandate that there are reproductive rights? Well, because this is all about the human life. No, it really isn't. And here's why. Because we never really determined when you have a person for the purpose of law versus a developing

fetus that could become, that has human potential. We never really improved on viability because we didn't really care. We wanted this to be about politics and division. And this is a case in politics of the dog catching the car. And when you changed and removed this protection, you sent a fear through women's heads and hearts that they haven't felt in a generation. And it's not all women. Some are very pro-life. And why do I do this? One, everybody's pro-life. Okay. And very few people are pro-death or, except to talk about the death penalty, or I like to kill babies. That's what I like to do. You know, that's a very rare sympathy to hear expressed, if at all, by sane people.

But more importantly, you are pro-life until it comes out of the fetus, it comes out of the vagina or out of the belly. And then what? Where does this incredible, extreme passion for the potential of this human being, once they actually need you in their lives? You see what I'm saying? There's a lack of

consistency. It's like, once you come out, you're on your own. It doesn't make sense to me. And when something doesn't make sense, it's indicative of politics. So women have an exigency, an existential crisis on their hands, too many of them. Okay. And that's what you're seeing. And we're seeing it in the polling. And the right greatly underestimated the backlash from that move. Sure, you made the evangelicals happy, and they are the biggest group of Christians in the country. But you got a lot more women than you got evangelicals. Well, what about evangelical women? You got a lot more non-evangelical women than evangelical women. women. You got a lot more non-evangelical women than evangelical women.

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Now, on the male side, it's different different it's about cultural conditioning it is not just in cells involuntarily celibate it's kind of like the new term for loser or whatever like you can't get laid so you are involuntarily celibate what about a simp which is uh what? Simp is like a doting boy who lusts after a woman. Like the nice guy who just like, you know, is like in the friend zone permanently. The simp. You know that. Simping for someone. That is a new definition of that word.

Yeah. Yeah. And do you remember? The Simpsons? Yeah. It was a great show. No. We had this conversation.

You and I? Yes. About you being a simp or me being a simp what about the word simp gregory we've not we've not had a simp conversation on this show not on the show i called you a simp what the hell why and you got very upset and i said i don't think this word means what you think it means i'm not a simp i agree you are not a simp by your definition print that but by mine you. But what is your definition? I'm using the current definition of a sim.

Just a guy, no hair on his arms, a little soft. Yeah, I'm a Scandinavian. No, you're not. You're American. And love it or leave it. What are you talking about? I was in Sweden last year visiting my great-great-uncle. What's his name?

Raymar. He owns, R-E-I-M-a-r raymar westerland he owns a fine textile company i'm gonna say you're you can't make it this easy to get you upset he owns a textile company he's a very impressive man what are you gonna do when the baby's coming and destroying all your favorite stuff are you gonna go crazy every five seconds they're not allowed in my room oh get ready for reality my brother you don't have a lock on that door man you do not have a room anymore you're not even not only you're not gonna have a lock you're gonna have these weird things on your doorknobs oh yeah oh i can't wait anyway men are dealing with something else a function of cultural conditioning where, especially white men,

and men overall in terms of the, when is it okay to be masculine? What does that mean anymore? And you see a lot of this on social media. It is proliferating. It is growing of these sites that are pitching to men that it's okay to be dominant and to be strong and to be alphas. And it is working. And by the way, that's not good or bad. It's just a perspective on masculinity. But there are a lot of men, mostly white, who are being culturally conditioned through media, mostly white, who are being culturally conditioned through media, agendas, some propaganda, to believe that they are unwanted for what they are and unwanted for how they are. I've had guys sending me, have I told you this about the commercial counts?

I've had these men- Counting the number of commercials on the show? No, counting- If you subscribe to the Substack, no commercials show no counting if you if you subscribe to substack no commercials well done i'm just trying to help people have been counting the races in commercials and sending it to me as proof that diversity is an organized eradication of whiteness. Okay, now look, you know what my truth is on this, that diversity is America's greatest strength. It is what made us who we are,

that not everybody is from Sweden. You have some people from Sweden. You have some people from Italy. You have some people who just got here. You have some people who've been You have some people from Italy. You have some people who just got here. You have some people who've been here for four or five generations. You've got East Asians. You've got Southeast Asians. You've got outer Mongolians. You have all kinds of people. And that's why America is so tough to beat because we're bringing the best and arguably the worst of everything into this world. And that's our strength.

I would argue it's even our purpose. But that doesn't have anything to do with eradicating or erasing whiteness. That's not how I see diversity. But I'll tell you, there are a lot of men who are sending me these things being like, okay, so whites are half, let's say, okay? these things being like, okay, so whites are half, let's say, okay? Black people are 17, 15,

14, whatever number you want. Look at these commercials. Look how there's like one white person and everybody else is brown or something else. And at first I was like, so what? How are you threatened by the commercial? But I keep getting them now. And now I'm looking at commercials this way. It doesn't have the same impact on me psychologically. But they are being conditioned to think that the left wants them gone. And that's why you saw this quick turn on the opportunity that was provided on some of these Ivy League campuses, big school campuses, that when they screwed it up in the hearing about how they were treating Jewish students and protecting Jewish students and protecting against anti-Semitism the way they do so many other things that they like,

it created an opportunity to go after the other things that people believe they're inculcating, It created an opportunity to go after the other things that people believe they're inculcating, specifically DEI. Now, again, diversity, equity, inclusion, I think is fundamental to the American proposition. It's all about how you encourage it and implement it. And there's this really quick frontal attack coming on that, that it all has to go. Now, the only reason you would want it to all go is because you believe that you are going to be disadvantaged personally. And so I see this bifurcation that you're talking about in voting things is that women are being affected in a way by this really important issue about reproductive rights and legislating bodies. And I get it. It's

complicated. It's easy to weaponize, but I get it that it's been a galvanizing tool. And I expect to see it in this election. But with men, it's different that it is also pissed off and fear based, but less rationally so, more emotionally so. Ironic, right? Because we usually say the women are the ones, you know, that's like an old bias trope about women. And let me tell you, anybody who's in this business, if you don't think women can use their brains the same way men can and lead and make hard decisions,

let me introduce you to somebody named Dusty. So yes, I think that you're seeing a divergence or bifurcation, as you say. But it's not because they're going the different ways on the same issue. It's because they have their own issues. I just think it's such an interesting direction to be going in for people who are piling on both Taylor Swift and the National Football League, two of the most popular things in, if not just America, then the world. Like if you looked at that, there was a stat that showed of television broadcasts last year, like something like 90 of the top 100 of them were National

Football League games, many of which are consumed by men, I would imagine. And then Taylor Swift is the biggest recording artist in the world, or one of them. So you have this, these incredibly popular mass appeal forces that a bunch of people have just decided, yeah, we, we hate both of these now. Like at what point do you culturally paint yourself into a corner? Like, all right, you don't like the NFL. You don't like Taylor Swift. You don't drink Bud Light. You don't want to shop at Target. You see what I'm saying? I'm, I'm painting a broad brush here, but you see what I'm saying? I'm painting a broad brush here, but you see what I'm saying? Like the way you,

at what point do you reduce the amount of culture that you even want to take part in? Where does this leave you? Like an open field with like a cup and ball game? You know what I mean? I sucked at that. I have one at home.

I'm very good at it. I have a great video of my wife catching it in slow motion. He is of the generation where he believes he's good at everything. No, I said my wife, we are good at the cup and ball game. See, you're upset again. I'm going to say this is not-

You're upset again. I'm not bragging about some achievement. I'm saying this little, it's like a cup with a string on the end of it and a ball. You can go like that. We have the motor skills to be very accomplished at this particular activity. One, don't bring your pregnant wife into it. Second, because now I feel bad and I don't bring your pregnant wife into it. Second, because now I feel bad and I don't want to feel bad about it.

And I have a question to ask you that's not as serious as it is just designed to be hurtful. How were you successful at improv when you have no ability to handle my jokes in real time? We'll start making them and I'll tell you how to react. He's quick. You got to give it to him. He's quick.

Let me tell you how to react. He's quick. You got to give it to him. He's quick. Let me tell you something else. The answer to your question is that it ends at the end. And I'm not creating something that's facile here. Everything has to be a point of division right now. Nothing is escaping. Why? It's like a bad sci-fi movie where there's a vacuum, a black hole, sucking everything in. And that hole is the two-party system. This inexorable, seemingly battle to the bottom where it's all about who's worse

and everything's getting put through it. Every issue that happens. The war in the Middle East. Do you think it's a coincidence that on the far left, there is this super aggressive pro-Palestine slash even to a certain degree, Hamas forgiveness or excusing away their actions or rationalizing them away slash anti-Zionistic tendency. And on the right, it's the completely opposite where they're like all in with Israel and you don't hear anything. You think that's a coincidence?

Of course not. Everything's being divided. Even Taylor Swift. Why? Because as this game sucks the energy of our political culture and our larger culture into it, everything's got to become binary. Everything's got to become a test of us and them. Even if people don't even have a natural inclination about it or it doesn't affect them.

You have to to be on that team. You have to have to be on that team. You have to have certain feelings and values. It's like, you know, if you wanted to grow up and you were into punk rock music and all of a sudden you had to be goth. And it was like, you know, everything got put through that filter and that's where it ends. And it seems absurd to you because you are open-minded, but to people who are in the team game, it's who's the new boogeyman new boogeyman is taylor swift we're done with pizza gate uh you know we're done with deep state that didn't really catch on the way we wanted to so now it's this manchurian uh advocate you know instead of

a candidate that really so biden can't come out and make the case for himself, but he can control the NFL. What does that tell you? This dividing line of establishment versus disruption. Everything successful, everything big gets swept into establishment, except Trump. Somehow he's able to stay non-establishment when he checks every box being the establishment. I don't like football, big corporate enterprise. You know what I mean? What's going to be next? Baseball, MMA.

It will all be weaponized and put through the meat grinder of which side are you on. That's what's happening to us. And the absurdity of this is proof. Well, you've spoken a lot about this on this show, just about the way in which we're separating one another. But I don't think you, I didn't quite hear from you of like, where does this lead? How do you, do you have any historical parallels of like how you recover from people who have chosen, like what is, you've said before, if there was some big like 9-11 style event

or some horrible thing that it makes us all go, okay, we're all on the same team here. Like short of that, what could possibly bring people together? Maybe a better political unifying figure than the, a lot of the people we have today, or I'm, I'm really curious because I do really think target is a place you go to buy toothpaste and they're like, oh, but we have this pride display. Well, I can't shop there anymore. It's like, so you're going to shop at the dollar general now, pride display. Well, I can't shop there anymore. It's like, so you're going to shop at the dollar general now. You know what I mean? Like it's the, the, the inconvenience, this costs someone in their life of like the knots you tie yourself in just to say, well, this is for my team.

Well, on one particular team, in my opinion, it just makes your life more difficult. And so I I'm just struggling to figure out how to, how you, as a country, let alone a person, rebuild and stop thinking of things this way. So it's complicated to go a lot of different ways. One, people could start choosing for themselves to not be co-opted by the game, to not be lemmings, not to be sheeple, and to think, I can't go to Target because there's some asshole on cable television or social media is telling me that it's anti-Trump or Biden or whatever, that I'm going to think for myself.

I'm going to be a critical thinker. I'm an independent. I'm not owned by some stupid party. Two is to end the two-party system and to allow open primaries and ranked choice voting and more optionality for people in terms of who leads them so we don't get co-opted

by the fringe, which is what's the engine behind all this. The third one would be a transcendent figure. Transcendent meaning that they are big enough, charismatic enough, pitching to your imagination in a way that leaps over all of the petty division, all of the artifice, all of the artificiality of this division that we're dealing with here. You're talking about like a Reagan or an Obama type thing. That's kind of like a, it's not just a political person. It's a cultural. I actually think at this point, it can't be a political person. Oh, interesting. I think it would have to be, and I'm not saying Hollywood heroes, but I'm saying-

Like if Oprah was running for president? Well, look, even she in the testing and the measuring that she did of whether or not to get into the race, decided it would be too hard. Yeah, didn't The Rock do that too? Dwayne Johnson? He may be. But I don't know. I don't know where they would come from. But you have to be a disruptor to get into the populist zeitgeist right now. So I don't know

how it's someone who comes from an established anything, whatever that means. Well, those are just entertainment figures that I've heard, you know, rumored. Yeah, but you will hear that because they get the profile, right? They get the attention. But we are seeing where it's leading us. It's leading us to what I believe is manifested by Trump versus Biden. You can't tell me that this is the best that America can do. I mean, no personal disrespect to the president or the former president, okay? Vote for whoever you want. I'm not in the business of telling you that. But you think that these two guys are the best. No, it is a reflection of the failure of the two-party system. This is the best that system can do because that system is all about just playing to advantage.

And they have been winning based on who and what is worse, not better. They don't have to impress you. They have to depress you. And that's what they've been doing. So that changes. People change. Circumstances change. But it's not going to be easy. And it's not going to be fast. Why? Because it took us a long time to get into this hole.

Our first president told us to stay away from parties. And we have been getting deeper and deeper into them ever since. And I really believe that the initial instinct was the correct one. Be a nation. That is all. The only thing we have in America that connects us, because it's a very heterogeneous, very mixed society, right, is our collective understanding and belief in the ways and means of this country and the promise of this country and the equal respect for each other and opportunity. That's what it's supposed to be.

And that's really all it should be. We've gotten away from that to exactly what Washington warned against, that you're going to have a small group of men that wind up having outsized power and are focused on their own interests, not the country's. That's where we are. And you're suggesting that politics is at the root of most of this division we're seeing just throughout the culture? Political culture. Because you have a lot of opportunists that aren't in politics with a big P or a little p or however you want to look at it. You have social media influencers who co-opt this and play to agendas and propagandize. You have business, you have money.

Let me tell you who doesn't want to end the two-party system. The PACs, the dark money world. Why? Well, it's easy when you only got two teams, you can cover and hedge. I think Greg's going to win, but I'm going to give money to Cuomo too. You get five, six parties where it's open and parties don't control it, which by the way, parties in the Constitution, no.

Parties created by federal law though, no. Parties are tradition. And they are given the imprimatur of law by all the powerful people who are in the parties. of law by all the powerful people who are in the parties. You know, it's like if a country club became universal all over America because all of your elected leaders belong to it. And you're like, wait a minute, I didn't sign up to have to be in this country club

or to be ruled by this country club. That's the party system. The Soho house costs like two grand. That's cheap by political standards. Yeah, I know. But you know- Not by Greg's standards. They wouldn't let me in anyway.

No, the money, the media, there are a lot of stakeholders in this game. It's easier to cover two than cover five. It's easy to cover who is worse and the latest scandal and Taylor Swift and the New York Times about this bullshit, then deal with ideas and policy and vexing questions.

This is easier. And that's why it's happening. Well, to wrap up this episode of Controversy, Non-Troversy, I'm going to ask you a controversial question. What is your favorite Taylor Swift song? You know, I'll tell you a story. Why don't you give me

the name first? Because I don't know the names of her songs. You can't name a single Taylor Swift song? I mean, I could hum a couple. Let's hear it.

That's more of an exhale. I'm thinking. Oh. I mean, this is really not my time. No, it's hard. It's hard for anybody to conjure up a song

from one of the most popular figures on earth at the moment. Well, hold on. Am I not allowed to have my own musical interests? You are. Or must, as proof of how sick we are as a society, must I have a take on Taylor Swift for you? I do.

I'm sure you do, by the way. I'm sure you know a lot of her songs, but we are different in that way and others. Oh. But, I don't know. If I heard her songs, I'd know they're hers.

Shake it off. Yes. There we go. Let's shake it off. Yeah. And I like the thing, the song where it goes, now we got bad blood.

Yeah. And then, the one about beef. But a lot of the songs don't really resonate with me because they're about like, you know, her love life. But I'll tell you what, I remember her first appearance on Good Morning America.

I don't know if she was 14, 15 or 16, but this skinny kid with a guitar and just obvious, tremendous talent and such tremendous depth of purpose. She wanted it not just to be loved. She wanted to create. And I remember being on the set of GMA. It was a long time ago. And being like, wow, this kid is something special. And of course, she wound up being. Being Taylor Swift. And being a very big deal.

I first caught wind of Taylor Swift. She was on the album. I believe it's Battle Studies by John Mayer. I think she's on the track Half of My Heart. And that's one of the top half of the songs on that album. I mean, I like Heartbreak Warfare. All We Ever Do Is Say Goodbye is really good. There's a cover of Crossroads.

Oh, but Edge of Desire is hands down one of Mayer's best songs live. It's great on this album, but that is a, if you've ever played guitar, that is a difficult song to learn, Edge of Desire,

but it's pretty good. So anyway, she's on that album and she's good on that. He is seen as maybe one of the best guitarists. Yeah, I've seen that guy. I've seen him solo probably four or five times. I've seen dead and company. I want to see dead and company at the sphere, but I have some child being born and my wife is big into dead and company. I heard they're

going to the sphere and she wants to go there, man. If I could see, I was in the sphere a few months ago for a bachelor party and I took a bunch of edibles and I got to experience the whole show like that. I got to tell you, man, if there's ever a place to, to take a couple of weed gummies, holy shit. I mean, and it was just like some bad, you know, IMAX style, you know, video by Darren Aronofsky. I say bad in the sense of like, there's no plot to it. There's like robots are on a different planet. Let me remind you what earth is. And they show, you know, like a butterfly flying at the screen. But man- Darren Aronofsky is one of our best filmmakers.

Yeah, he's great. The wrestler is fantastic. Anyway, so the sphere, I wish I could go to see Dead and Company, but- Yeah, Christina's a big fan of theirs. Now, just to be very clear, I don't have to be a Taylor Swift musical maven and love her music to defend her in this proposition. And I don't care.

I'm happy for her success. From what I hear and what I've seen, she deserves it. But this is a cheap trick to keep you angry, to keep you scared. And it's so absurd on its face, it's such crazy sauce, that it shows you, to Greg's point, that these parties are getting more and more desperate. They keep lowering the standard.

We literally had one of the two major parties speaking consistently about whether Democrats eat babies. Where does this end? Nowhere good, and hopefully soon. Well, I hope that was enjoyable for you, at least. Controversy or non-troversy? It's a craze. For Gregory Ott, not his real name, and for me, thank you for subscribing and following. We appreciate you here. Thank you for checking out News Nation, 8P, 11P, every weekday night.

If you want the podcast without ads, I get it. Subscribe at Substack, thechrisquomoproject.substack.com. And the growing conversation around long COVID lives there. I'm starting a new treatment protocol. I'm going to take you through every step of what the doctor tells me about what it is, why it is, and then how it goes. Let's get after it. Thank you.