According to Taylor Swift’s Kamala Harris, Janice Min, founder and CEO of The Anklerprovides insight into the powerful intersection of celebrity and politics. Getting celebrity endorsement is important, but being a star in today’s environment is a whole different game. Whether it’s A-listers, CEOs, or politicians, Min explains how the lines between fame and influence are blurring, and why it’s impossible to predict when or how someone will rise to the top.
This is an abbreviated transcript of the interview Quick Responseowned by Bob Safian, former editor-in-chief of Fast company. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Quick Response features direct interviews with today’s top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Quick Response wherever you get your podcasts to make sure you don’t miss an episode.
We have to talk about Taylor Swift and her endorsement of Kamala Harris, which kind of caused a media frenzy, and Trump writes in all caps, ‘I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!’ Can you explain Taylor’s first post and your reaction?
Well, first of all, to think that it was done automatically after the debate, that he automatically wrote that the Instagram post is funny, and I don’t believe for a second that it was not linked to the Harris campaign. But whatever, maybe I’m wrong.
But he talked about that after he watched the debate, his decision was made, he was pressured by the fake AI endorsement that came out when someone made him endorse Donald Trump and Donald Trump posted it on Truth Social, and then, of course, his last signature to stomp on every Instagram post signed “childless cat lady.” He also didn’t send it to X significantly; I have to think that given the nature of Elon Musk’s creation, and that Elon Musk endorsed Trump. So if you thought Kamala Harris won that debate, she made it even more so tonight, I guess I’d say.
There is a perception that Hollywood in the celebrity world is kind of more Democratic, more anti-Trump. Is the media underestimating Republican celebrity support for Trump? Or is it really a one-horse town?
I think it’s a one-horse town with a quiet hidden pony—people are really afraid they’re going to be blacklisted for being overly supportive of Donald Trump. That argument is entirely present here. I mean, Donald Trump is coming to Los Angeles and he’s having fundraisers. So I think the power in Hollywood, the most powerful people in Hollywood, whether it’s Dana Walden at Disney or Ted Sarandos at Netflix—the Democrats are powerful, I guess I would say.
People can’t get jobs or work in Hollywood right now unless you’re at the highest level, and nobody’s going to risk that. Hollywood was very sensitive to issues related to racism. I think that anyone in Hollywood who is looking at these things going on about dog food and cat food in Springfield, Ohio, it’s like it would be very difficult to sell your public support for a candidate like that when you run the HR department and have invested 10 years in this idea of safe workplaces and all that.
There is simply no incentive to come out and publicly support Trump. Obviously, he sees who he gets as his supporters like Kid Rock, Scott Baio, Dana White; that you get some wrestlers and musicians and some kind of fringe people. And you can build a celebrity alliance with that. Jon Voight. But usually, these are not the bread and butter, A-list Hollywood people.
You also see celebrities who don’t want to say who they support. I mean, I’m thinking about the frenzy surrounding Patrick Mahomes, the Chiefs quarterback. His wife wrote some things that people said sounded like she was supporting Trump, and he refused to comment, so people said, “Well, he doesn’t want to cross his wife.” And I’m just thinking, he doesn’t want to cross his sponsors at State Farm, does he? I mean, isn’t that really it?
Already, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce were the subjects of crazy conspiracies and QAnon and all this good stuff last NFL season. So I’m curious to see if there’s any blowback, or how it gets back to him.
The NFL is very broad. It is in every state. It doesn’t matter if it’s blue or red, and it’s very red. And there’s always been that weird confusion of the NFL with patriotism that, until Kamala Harris took the stage, patriotism was for the Republicans, you know, literally or not, but they made it their message. And of course, Kamala Harris, with some skill, was able to respond to that message, so we’ll see how that plays out.
Are you hearing something about the corporate world that needs spokesperson neutrality more than ever? I think about how Caitlin Clark loved Taylor Swift’s endorsement but then refused to say anything about her position. I always think, is that all about the corporate world? Or do they really want to stay private?
Both. I mean, I think the incentives to come out and state your political position are a lot less now. What do you gain? Are you so angry that you have to say something? Good. That’s right. But I think the risk is defined for both, you know, whether you’re a CEO or a star. And I think very few people are willing to take that risk these days. How many stars can resist a message from Trump on Truth Social, like, ‘I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!’, all caps, exclamation points? No, like, very few stars can handle that mentally or feel their business can handle that.
Being a star is like being an elected official yourself; like, trying to stay in office as long as possible. And I have to think that for many of them, taking a political stance doesn’t help that.
As you know, political issues are getting more intense as we get closer to the election. We’ve asked ourselves in this show, like, how much we rely on that obsession in our integration against the kind of counter-programs, going the other way. And I’m curious if there’s a playbook that works for media companies. Because dependency can help ratings at least in some ways, but sometimes, there are things you have to do hyperbolically to increase that care.
I always feel like, fish where the fish are. People are passionate about it. And I think the way that in 2015, when Trump ran for president, politics became the new entertainment. I would say this summer, if you have a George Clooney and Brad Pitt movie on Apple TV that is released in theaters and sent directly to broadcast, it’s like we have a new star system this summer and we depend on it.
And it just speaks to the point that you can’t make a star the way it was crazy for some people to see Trump take the idea in 2015, 2016, that you see that with Kamala Harris, too. That is something you cannot do. And I think the problem we were seeing with Biden was that he didn’t have the star power. He had no star power in 1976, and he has no star power in 2024.
Well, we weren’t sure Kamala Harris had the star power four years ago, but she does now.
It’s really crazy. I think some of it is, like, how do you meet this moment, right? So I’m going to use some Hollywood analogies here since I’m your Hollywood guy today. So, like, let’s talk about the actor Glen Powell, who was a very active actor. You didn’t know his name. And suddenly, he became the biggest thing in the world in thirty years. And that is very rare.
And so it’s a person who just strikes for a certain reason at a certain time. Well, that’s what makes people in LA lose their minds, isn’t it? As if you see these people who have become famous, who do you look like but why? How did that happen? And I can say the same about television shows, movies. Like, why that and not this? And it’s one of the last inexplicable things in a world that’s trying to systematize a game with algorithms and recommendations, and having an intangible silo in the world is kind of fun and kind of crazy.
Have you ever thought that a politician from California, from San Francisco, a colored woman captures the imagination of the nation and has a horse race in the swing states? That to me, too, is the kind of thing that makes politics or Hollywood so fascinating. You just never know where a star will come from. You can’t fix this. I can’t wait to see how history looks back in 2024.
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