Fox News ran a conspiratorial segment saying the Pentagon wanted to use Taylor Swift as a psy-op

• Fox News' Jesse Watters floated a brand new theory about Taylor Swift on Tuesday night.
• He said the Pentagon had planned to make her an "asset" in a pro-President Joe Biden "psyop."
• Watters added that he "has no evidence" that this is actually happening. 

Fox News' Jesse Watters floated a brand new theory about Taylor Swift on Tuesday night, saying that the Pentagon had planned to make her into an "asset" in a pro-President Joe Biden "psy-op."

Speaking on "Jesse Watters Primetime," Watters started out with the conundrum of why Swift has so many fans.

"I mean I like her music, she's all right," he said. "But I mean, have you ever wondered why or how she blew up like this?"

The answer, he suggested, is that Swift had entered a covert pact with the Biden administration to promote its agenda and swing voters his way — although, he later said, he had no evidence this pact had actually happened.

He said: "Around four years ago, the Pentagon's psychological operations unit floated turning Taylor Swift into an asset during a NATO meeting," he said. "What kind of asset? A psyop for combating online misinformation."

He then shared footage of a conference speaker, who he framed as "the Pentagon's psyop unit pitch[ing] NATO on turning Taylor Swift into an asset for combating misinformation online."

The speaker — identified by Mediaite as research engineer Alicia Marie Bargar — appeared to be speaking hypothetically about the power of influence stars can have.

Here's what Bargar said in the clip shown by Watters:

"You came in here wanting to understand how you just go out there and counter the information operation," she said.

"The idea is that social influence can help encourage or promote behavior change, potentially as a peaceful information operation. I include Taylor Swift in here because she's a fairly influential online person."

In other parts of the presentation — not aired in the Fox segment — Bargar shared the largely uncontroversial idea that "social influence can help encourage, help promote behavior change," adding that this should be done "with people," and in an ethical manner.

According to Mediaite, Bargar was speaking on a panel entitled "Information Warfare: defining and analyzing" at the 11th International Conference on Cyber Conflict in Tallinn, Estonia, which took place at the end of May 2019.

It was organized by the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, whose mission, its website says, is to support member states in cyber defense. The listing said the panel was moderated by NATO StratCom's then-COE Donara Barojan.

A LinkedIn profile lists Bargar as working, at the time of the conference, as a research engineer for Johns Hopkins.

The only potential connection between Bargar and the Pentagon that Business Insider could find is, per the LinkedIn profile, a role at tech company Graphika, which names DARPA and the DOD's Minerva Initiative among its clients and research partners. But this is listed as being from June 2019 — after the conference took place.

This seems to be the basis on which Watters identified Bargar as "the Pentagon's psyop unit." Fox News representatives did not immediately respond to a request for clarification, sent outside of business hours.

In the Fox News segment, Watters admitted he had "no evidence" that Swift is "a front for a covert political agenda."

"If we did, we'd share it," he said. "But we're curious. Because the pop star who endorsed Biden is urging millions of her followers to vote."

Nonetheless, he went on to speak as if it were real, calling it "the psy-op" and musing: "I wonder who got to her, from the White House, or wherever."

Representatives for Swift did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment.