Joe Biden is in his re-election era — just don’t ask his press secretary about it.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre shook off a question Monday about a potential President Biden-Taylor Swift duet to boost the Democrat’s 2024 campaign — citing federal law to do so.
“Let me first say, I’ve got to be really mindful — I’m a federal employee,” Jean-Pierre laughingly told CNN’s John Berman in response to rumors the 81-year-old could make an appearance at one of the pop icon’s upcoming “Eras Tour” dates.
“As you know, there’s something called the Hatch Act, so I certainly can not speak to anything that is related to 2024 in the upcoming election,” Jean-Pierre added — notably not denying the whispers.
“Obviously, there are a lot of, in my shop, in the press office shop, there are a lot of Swifties, if you will, fans of Taylor Swift,” she went on. “I’m just going to leave it there. I’m not going to get into the president’s schedule at all from here, as it relates to the 2024 elections.”
“The first time the Hatch Act has been invoked in regards to Taylor Swift,” Berman noted drily.
The Hatch Act, enacted in 1939, prohibits executive branch employees from using “official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election,” and Jean-Pierre has good reason to be familiar with it.
In June of last year, the independent Office of Special Counsel determined the press secretary had violated the law — and possibly caused bad blood — ahead of the 2022 midterms with her repeated use of the words “mega MAGA Republicans” from the White House briefing room in reference to GOP candidates.
Since then, Jean-Pierre has frequently cited the act to leave blank space in response to several questions related to the president’s campaign efforts.
Berman’s query was in response to a New York Times report that Biden campaign staffers have put the 34-year-old Swift at the top of their endorsement wish list following her billion-dollar tour and her much-publicized and scrutinized romance with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.
Among the ideas that reportedly have been considered: Dispatching Biden to one of the singer’s concerts when the “Eras Tour” swings back through the US beginning in late October — though even the Times acknowledged the suggestion had been made “a bit in jest.”
In fact, the outlet added, the campaign has been forced to warn would-be applicants for a social media job not to describe their “Taylor Swift strategy” — because it already has enough ideas.
Swift took her first tentative steps into the world of political advocacy in 2018, when she endorsed Democratic former Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen for Senate. Bredesen lost that race to Republican Marsha Blackburn.
Undeterred, the singer endorsed Biden back in 2020.
Though Swift hasn’t spoken out about this cycle’s race so far, she’s given no indication she would change her support if, as appears likely, Biden faces off against Donald Trump in November.
