Who is “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived”? Tim Walz gave that title to Donald Trump — making a play on words straight from Taylor Swift‘s The Tortured Poets Department — in a speech on Saturday (Sept. 14) ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
“Here’s my life hack for all the guys out there,” the Minnesota governor, Kamala Harris’ VP pick on the Democratic ticket, said an event in Superior, Wisconsin. He’d just voiced his respect for the intelligent women surrounding him, including wife Gwen Walz, who’s an English teacher. “Surround yourself with smart women and listen to them, and you’ll do just fine. That includes my fellow cat owner Taylor Swift, too, by the way.”
“It’s really great to have all of these women help us beat the smallest man in the world: Donald Trump,” Walz said to cheers, in an apparent nod to Swift’s Tortured Poets track called “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived.”
The Harris-Walz campaign pivoted from a brat summer to a Swift era when the pop star endorsed the pair after Harris and Trump’s Sept. 10 debate. In Swift’s endorsement of the Democratic candidates, she called out Trump posting fake AI images that had falsely suggested she supported the MAGA leader.
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“It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation,” Swift said about the doctored images Trump put up on his Truth Social feed. “It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter. The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth.”
“I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election,” she stated.
“I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos,” Swift wrote of Harris, adding, “I was so heartened and impressed by her selection of running mate @timwalz, who has been standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body for decades.”
Swift signed her post as “Childless Cat Lady,” a zinger aimed at Trump’s VP candidate JD Vance, who once used that description to demean Democratic leaders without children.
Swift’s endorsement — posted on her 238 million-follower Instagram feed — brought around 400,000 people to the Vote.gov registration website in the following days.
Harris used Swift’s “The Man” at a post-debate appearance, while Walz said he’s “incredibly grateful” to Swift for her public support. “I say that as a fellow cat owner,” he commented in an interview with MSNBC. “That was eloquent and that was clear and that’s the type of courage we need in America to stand up.”
Harris and Walz swiftly made friendship bracelets spelling “Harris-Walz” available on their campaign’s online store, with proceeds going to the Harris Victory Fund. Ads from the Democratic National Committee, unveiled on billboards in New York, soon read “We’re In Our Kamala Era!” and “A New Way Forward… Ready For It?”
Regarding who did inspire “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived”: Swift doesn’t identify her actual muses, though the lyrics of the track, and others on the Billboard 200 15-week chart-topper The Tortured Poets Department, offer some hints to those familiar with her public relationships.
“Were you sent by someone who wanted me dead?” Swift wonders of an ex-lover that ruined a “sparkling summer” by leaving her. “Did you sleep with a gun underneath our bed? Were you writing a book? Were you a sleeper cell spy? In 50 years, will all this be declassified?”
“And you’ll confess why you did it,” she continues in the song’s raw bridge. “And I’ll say ‘good riddance’ ’cause it wasn’t sexy once it wasn’t forbidden. I would’ve died for your sins; instead, I just died inside. And you deserve prison, but you won’t get time.”
Watch Walz’s full speech from Saturday in the video below.