The White House has refused to apologise to Sabrina Carpenter after she laid into the Donald Trump administration for using her song Juno to soundtrack their social media video promoting ICE arrests.
The 20-second clip, posted Monday across the White House’s X and TikTok accounts, begins with footage of people protesting ICE raids before cutting to a rapid montage of agents chasing and detaining individuals alleged to be undocumented immigrants.
The video is edited to Carpenter’s now-viral lyric from Juno: ‘Have you ever tried this one? Bye-bye.’ The caption repeats the line, punctuated with a waving-heart-eyes emoji.
The White House’s video is referencing the playful connotation Juno has taken on thanks to Carpenter’s own staging of the song throughout her recent Short ’n Sweet tour.
The singer incorporated a comedic ‘arrest’ gag using pink prop handcuffs, often locking up a surprised audience member or celebrity guest. Another viral moment in the show involved Carpenter teasing the crowd with a different sex position inspired pose each night, punctuated by her repeated line, ‘Have you ever tried… this one?’
Carpenter wasted no time distancing herself from the message, writing on X: ‘This video is evil and disgusting. Do not ever involve me or my music to benefit your inhumane agenda.’
Now, the White House has told Entertainment Weekly in response: ‘Here’s a Short n’ Sweet message for Sabrina Carpenter: we won’t apologise for deporting dangerous criminal illegal murderers, rapists, and pedophiles from our country.’
The representative added, referencing lyrics from Carpenter’s hit song Manchild, ‘Anyone who would defend these sick monsters must be stupid, or is it slow?’
The backlash arrives amid a growing tension between popular artists and Trump’s White House, which has repeatedly used chart-topping music in immigration enforcement videos without securing permission.
Other musicians who have fought back against the US Government using their music
Just weeks ago, Olivia Rodrigo blasted the administration for using her song All-American Bitch in a Department of Homeland Security Instagram post depicting ICE officers tackling and deporting people.
‘Don’t ever use my songs to promote your racist, hateful propaganda,’ Rodrigo wrote. That DHS video encouraged viewers to ‘LEAVE NOW and self-deport’ using a government app.
Other musicians have sounded alarms as well. Kenny Loggins recently criticised Trump for using his song Danger Zone beneath an AI-generated video depicting the president dumping waste onto anti-Trump protestors.
Whether the White House will pull the video using Carpenter’s song remains to be seen, but it’s clear that musicians are no longer staying silent about their work being used to promote hateful agendas.
Trump has been criticised for deporting many migrants without a fair trial, to which he replied: ‘You can’t have a trial for all of these people.
‘Look, we are getting some very bad people, killers, murderers, drug dealers, really bad people, the mentally ill, the mentally insane, they emptied out insane asylums into our country, we’re getting them out.
‘And a judge can’t say: ‘No, you have to have a trial,’” Trump claimed. ‘No, we are going to have a very dangerous country if we are not allowed to do what we are entitled to do.’
Homeland Security claim ICE are ‘arresting the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens including pedophiles, human smugglers, and thieves,’ according to their official website.
However, government data in September showed that of the 59,762 people in ICE detention across the US at the time, 16,523 had no criminal record.
ICE has been dubbed Trump’s personal rogue agency, with him stating during his campaign trail: ‘On day one, I will launch the largest deportation programme of criminals in the history of America.’
Celebrities have spoken out since LA marches in June rippled into national protests, with Kim Kardashian even weighing in.
