Taylor Swift said in an interview published Friday that President Trump is “gaslighting the American public.”
He’s “gaslighting the American public into being like, ‘If you hate the president, you hate America,’” the 29-year-old singer-songwriter told The Guardian.
She added: “We’re a democracy – at least, we’re supposed to be – where you’re allowed to disagree, dissent, debate. I really think that he thinks this is an autocracy.”
The outlet noted that Swift said she started to feel “conflicted” about what America stood for when “all the dirtiest tricks in the book were used and it worked.”{mosads}
The Grammy award winner broke her political silence last year when she endorsed former Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen (D) in his unsuccessful Senate bid.
Swift said earlier this month that she didn’t publicly support Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election because Trump was successfully “weaponizing the idea of a celebrity endorsement.”
“He was going around saying, ‘I’m a man of the people. I’m for you. I care about you,’” Swift said in an interview with Vogue. “I just knew I wasn’t going to help.”
In March, the singer said she was “finding [her] voice in terms of politics,” writing in an essay for Elle magazine that she wants to “do more to help” ahead of the 2020 presidential race.