The White House’s social media strategy of late has been pretty simple: Use a pop star’s song in a video depicting mass deportations, spark outrage from said pop star, gain hundreds of thousands of views from said outrage, and then remove the audio before facing legal consequences. At least, this is the strategy that Sabrina Carpenter got wrapped up into recently. Last Monday, the White House’s official social accounts shared a video set to Carpenter’s “Juno,” where she sings: “Wanna try out some freaky positions?/ Have you ever tried this one?” The White House’s clip showed numerous ICE arrests, captioned: “Have you ever tried this one? Bye-bye.”
Carpenter responded to the video from her official account: “This video is evil and disgusting. Do not ever involve me or my music to benefit your inhumane agenda.” Within a couple of days, the video was deleted, but not before White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson responded to Carpenter with references to her own album title and lyrics: “Here’s a Short N’ Sweet message for Sabrina Carpenter: we won’t apologize 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?”
But the White House isn’t done mining Carpenter’s gags for their own content yet. It’s tradition for Carpenter to “arrest” an audience member “for being too hot” at her shows before she sings “Juno,” handing the arrestee a pair of fuzzy pink handcuffs. This bit was referenced in a promo clip Carpenter filmed with Marcello Hernandez ahead of her October SNL appearance: “I think I might need to arrest someone for being too hot,” she says in the promo. In a new post this past weekend, the White House grabbed that clip, swapping out “hot” for “illegal” in an AI voice, and then adding a clumsily-edited montage of more inhumane ICE arrests.
Between the actual ICE raids and the White House using footage of female pop stars without their consent, I don’t have words to express how angry this whole ordeal makes me. Hopefully Carpenter has some words soon, though. See their latest offense below.
