Taylor Swift finally got the response she demanded from the White House after she called them out at the MTV Video Music Awards on Monday night, but probably not the one she hoped. Swift has been a vocal advocate for the Equality Act, which passed the House but stalled in the Senate. When "You Need To Calm Down" won Video Of The Year, she referenced her petition for the Senate to support the act, which Swift directs viewers to sign at the end of the winning music video. In her speech she also pointed out that with half a million signatures, it has "five times the amount needed to warrant a response from the White House," miming tapping a watch.
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In a statement to USA Today, White House spokesman Judd Deere gave the long awaited response, saying, "The Trump Administration absolutely opposes discrimination of any kind and supports the equal treatment of all; however, the House-passed bill in its current form is filled with poison pills that threaten to undermine parental and conscience rights."
However, notorious presidential counsellor Kellyanne Conway had a slightly cattier response, quoting Swift's own song back to her while appearing on Fox News.
“If you say it on the street, that’s a knockout/If you put it in a tweet, that’s a cop-out,” she sang, adding, “I love that! I mean, that basically is Washington in a nutshell.” Perhaps she has not looked at the President's Twitter lately.
Conway also took a dig at Swift's fans, saying, "I would love to ask her audience if they even know what that is, [what] the Equality Act is and isn’t. She’s welcome to her opinion. I can tell you there’s a lot of poison pills in it."
However, she did not explain what those "poison pills" were. Anyways, two can play at that game, and Swift is probably somewhere humming "The Man" right now in response.
A rep for Swift did not immediately respond to Refinery29's request for comment.