Whoopi Goldberg slams ‘dumb’ Fox News conspiracy about government using Taylor Swift as asset

“You people worry about the weirdest stuff,” Goldberg said about a theory that the Pentagon tapped Swift as a PsyOp to control the public.

Whoopi Goldberg has paused her battle with the sonic phantoms and unknown entities haunting the set of The View, and is now taking aim at the messy noise coming from conservative conspiracy theories involving pop superstar Taylor Swift.

“There are real issues impacting millions of Americans,” the 68-year-old Oscar-winning actress said during Thursday’s show, before introducing a Hot Topic about a recent Fox News claim that alleges the Pentagon tapped Swift to control public opinion. “This is what the Fox News folks wanted viewers to be worried about during their prime-time broadcast on Tuesday.”

The show then cut to a clip of Fox anchor Jesse Watters saying the United States government wanted to use Swift for an initiative.

“Have you ever wondered why or how she blew up like this?” he asks. “Well, around four years ago, the Pentagon’s Psychological Operations unit floated turning Taylor Swift into an asset during a NATO meeting. What kind of asset? A PsyOp for combatting online misinformation.”

Watters goes on to cite Swift encouraging her fans to vote as evidence that she was being controlled by the government.

“Hundreds of thousands of young Taylor Swift fans all of a sudden registered to vote,” he says. “I wonder who got to her, from the White House or from wherever?”

A stunned Goldberg laid into Watters when the camera cut back to her at the table.

“You know, I have to say, when we talk about snowflakes, you people worry about the weirdest stuff,” she said. “She got people to go out and vote, including probably all kinds of people that you’d rather not have voting. If she can get people to do that, why would you say that was a bad thing or talk about it like you’re disparaging it? What kind of bull…?”

Whoopi Goldberg; Jesse Watters; Taylor Swift.ABC; FOX NEWS; JOHN SHEARER/TAS23/GETTY IMAGES

Sunny Hostin said she suspected that conservatives thought Swift’s penchant for country music early in her career meant she would align with their political ideals, and that they were ultimately turned off by her support for more liberal-leaning causes.

“I think the Jesse Watters of the world thought that she was their princess,” Hostin said. “She was in support of March for Our Lives against gun violence, she supported the LGBTQ community in her music videos, and then [she’s] pro-choice, and then she said [go] vote. They picked the wrong princess.”

“Im tired of dumb people. I’m just, I’m tired of it. I can’t handle it,” Goldberg said, before Hostin chimed in with a legal note from the Pentagon in which a spokesperson said the government was going to “shake it off” when it came to addressing the Fox News theory.

EW has reached out to Fox News and a representative for Swift for comment.

Vote.org CEO Andrea Hailey responded to Fox’s claim about Swift partnering with the organization on Tuesday, writing that the group’s partnership with Swift “is helping all Americans make their voices heard at the ballot box” and is not “a psy-op or a Pentagon asset,” but rather “the biggest nonpartisan platform in America helping young people register & cast their vote.”