White House Swats Down Taylor Swift’s VMAs Push For Equality Act - Deadline

One day after Taylor Swift made a public appeal for the White House to acknowledge her petition supporting the Equality Act, the Trump administration has responded, saying the legislation is filled with “poison pills.”

Monday night at the MTV Video Music Awards, Swift won the Video of the Year trophy for “You Need to Calm Down.” At the end of the video, there’s a message encouraging fans to sign the petition, which urges the U.S. Senate to vote on the Equality Act.

During her VMAs acceptance speech, Swift called out the White House.

“I want to thank everyone who signed that petition because it has half a million signatures, which is five times the amount it would need to warrant a response from the White House,”she said, then pretended to check her watch, signaling it’s time for a response.

[Watch Swift’s speech below]

The White House did just that today, according to CNN, and said it would not be supporting the bill, which is meant to prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

“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,” the White House said in a statement.

In June to mark the start of Pride Month, Swift took to Instagram to share a copy of a letter she had written to Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee urging him to support the Equality Act. She noted that the legislation had already passed in the Democratic-controlled House, and asked Alexander to vote yes as well.

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