White House 'Caved' to Sabrina Carpenter And Deletes Video Using Her Song

Sabrina Carpenter publicly condemned the White House for soundtracking an ICE raids montage with her hit 'Juno', prompting officials to remove the clip after intense blowback.

The episode began on Dec. 1, 2025 when the official White House social account posted a short montage of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations set to a looped snippet of Carpenter's 2024 single 'Juno'.

The post repeated the lyric 'Have you ever tried this one?' over footage of agents chasing, tackling and handcuffing people; its caption read, in part, 'Bye-bye'. Carpenter replied to the post on X, writing: 'this video is evil and disgusting. Do not ever involve me or my music to benefit your inhumane agenda'. Her reply rapidly went viral, drawing widespread condemnation and renewed scrutiny of the administration's use of popular music in political messaging.

White House Removes Post After Backlash

Within days, the White House quietly removed the original post from X; an outcome several outlets reported after cross-checking the White House account and archived copies of the clip.

Multiple news organisations later tracked a replacement upload on the White House's TikTok account, which retained the montage of arrests but omitted Carpenter's recording, instead using an altered clip of Carpenter's SNL appearance as audio and a caption reading: 'PSA: If you're a criminal illegal, you WILL be arrested & deported'.

That shift: deletion on X but reposting on another platform with changed audio, was interpreted by critics as an attempt to blunt legal and reputational pressure while keeping the administration's message live.

Spokesperson Doubles Down; Artists Push Back

Rather than apologise, a White House spokeswoman, Abigail Jackson, responded to Carpenter's criticism with a statement that referenced the singer's own album and lyrics.

Jackson told reporters: '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. Anyone who would defend these sick monsters must be stupid, or is it slow?'

Artists have long objected when political actors repurpose their music without permission; this incident follows a string of disputes in 2024–25 involving other high-profile musicians.

Those disputes have highlighted both reputational damage and potential copyright risk when copyrighted recordings are used in campaign or government content. Legal avenues exist, including Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedowns and civil suits, but artists have often relied first on public pressure, rapid social-media responses, and rights-holder reports to platform operators.

How The Clip Used 'Juno' And Why It Mattered

The chosen snippet of 'Juno' is one of Carpenter's most widely shared hooks: a cheeky vocal turn from a track whose performance routine has included playful mock-arrests onstage. The White House's edit turned the lyric's suggestive refrain into a visual motif, juxtaposing the flirtatious line with scenes of real people, many unmasked and unredacted, being subdued by federal officers.

The juxtaposition was designed to amplify a political narrative: normalising the administration's hardline immigration enforcement by scoring it with upbeat pop. That technique risks decontextualising the lived realities of people at the centre of enforcement operations and raises ethical questions about the use of an artist's work to advance policy messages they do not endorse.

The broader lesson is political and cultural: the repurposing of popular music by official accounts is no longer a simple communications tactic; it is a flashpoint that combines intellectual property, ethics, and the lived consequences of government policy. Sabrina Carpenter's intervention has once again forced that collision into the open.

'This is a boundary that should not be normalised,' one copyright scholar told reporters in the immediate aftermath, adding that the Carpenter episode could prompt more proactive licensing and vetting inside government comms shops.