In this op-ed, senior editor P. Claire Dodson examines the White House TikTok account's use of music by pop stars including Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo, and Taylor Swift.
It’s an honestly diabolical TikTok video. Sabrina Carpenter’s “Juno” plays over a montage: a masked protester holds up an “ICE Out of Chi” sign, individuals are seen filming on their phones, and law-enforcement officers tackle and handcuff various people who look to be Latino. In the last scene, a seemingly armed officer wearing a Border Patrol vest chases a person across a bridge, captured in slow motion like an action hero. “The White House” logo flashes in white across the screen. The caption reads, “Have you ever tried this one? Bye-bye🥰.”
It’s the latest example of the White House’s proclivity for pop music. Since Nov. 1, The White House TikTok and Instagram accounts have posted content using songs including but not limited to: Carpenter’s “Juno,” Charli XCX’s “everything is romantic” audio from the Wuthering Heights trailer, Nicki Minaj’s “Va Va Voom,” ABBA’s “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!,” Olivia Rodrigo’s “all american b*tch” — which we’ll come back to later — and Taylor Swift’s “The Fate of Ophelia.”
The White House official TikTok launched in late August 2025 with a video featuring an ominous Trump pronouncement: "I am your voice." It has published more than 300 videos in the over three months since. Whoever is running the account is churning out presidential highlight reels at a quick clip, and using trending audio to do it. It’s easy to chalk up social media behavior from corporations or governments or magazines to the work of “some unpaid intern,” but when a brand posts on social media, there’s typically a plan. So why is the White House choosing these artists to soundtrack videos of violence against people who federal agents (at least purportedly) think are undocumented immigrants? And is the tactic working?
Social media promotion, of course, is an algorithmic game; trending audio tends to bolster visibility. This bears out in the White House’s TikTok views. An edit of Trump posing and walking around with Melania set to the viral “Beez in the Trap/What’s Up” mashup has 16 million views as of this writing. That “Fate of Ophelia” TikTok — seemingly directly edited to go along with Swift’s specific chorus lyrics — has 9.7 million views. These numbers are among the account’s highest, alongside a video of Trump with Cristiano Ronaldo (16.9 million).
When the account uses pop girls to promote pro-Trump, anti-immigrant policy points, those increased views likely give other videos a boost, too, increasing the account’s total visibility. Some of these artists have called Trump out directly. In early November, Rodrigo commented on the TikTok with her song on it, “don’t ever use my songs to promote your racist, hateful propaganda.” (Her comment has since been deleted and the audio is no longer available.) And on Dec. 2, Carpenter responded to the White House’s video using her song on X, writing, “this video is evil and disgusting. Do not ever involve me or my music to benefit your inhumane agenda.” (Swift has been critical of Trump in the past, but she has not yet publicly spoken about the White House’s use of her music.)
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It’s an over-generalization to call Rodrigo and Carpenter’s audiences only teenage girls — they’re massive pop performers with massive amounts of fans at this point. But the fandom of teenage girls has been a substantial driver of their success. And it comes with a power and level of engagement that so many would love to exploit, the way some brands did in the late 2010s and early 2020s when they suddenly became K-pop stan accounts.
It feels especially notable that both Carpenter and Rodrigo are outspoken about things this administration hates; they are communicating to their audiences regularly that young women have power in the world, that what they think and do matters. Rodrigo said about this year’s ICE raids in Los Angeles that she was “deeply upset about these violent deportations of my neighbors under the current administration.” She’s also vocally pro-choice and fundraised for reproductive health care during her GUTS World Tour last year. In 2022, she said on stage in D.C., “Our bodies should never be in the hands of politicians.” Carpenter, meanwhile, has said that she’s donated to the National Immigration Law Center and encouraged her followers to do the same. She has also empowered more than 35,000 voters to get registered with HeadCount.org during her tour and expressed concern for Americans, particularly women, when Trump won. When you make clear, specific decisions that undermine the agendas of powerful people, they see you as a threat. The best way to neutralize a threat? Pretend you’re on the same side.
The “is it working” question of all of this is harder to answer. It’s certainly working for the White House social media accounts if numbers are the goal. But is it working to actually attract young people — kids and preteens and young teenagers — who might not have made up their minds politically just yet? The comments sections seem to be flooded with hate about the song choices and proclamations that the artist wouldn’t want this, not with young future Republicans obsessing about the use of a Taylor Swift song. It’s a classic ragebait for engagement tradeoff, and it flattens both politics and pop music in the way social media is just so good at. Twenty-first century chart obsession and the quest for TikTok virality through easy soundbite snippets don’t feel dissimilar from how politicians think they can gain and wield cultural soft power to win elections or plot whatever cartoonishly evil sh*t they’re plotting. Sometimes they can. Sometimes you get “Kamala is brat.”
And so the “is it working” question of the White House TikTok account produces ever-more sinister possible answers. This administration’s content choices suggest that it doesn’t take young people seriously — and if that’s indeed the case, then it’s not considering your rights or personhood. And if it’s not considering the personhood of one group, then it’s likely not considering the personhood of many other groups.
The White House TikTok account exists to promote its tenant. Here, have a 10-second action movie that implicitly paints immigration officers as heroes, or a Trump fan edit set to your favorite song. Smooth-brained consumption, hypnotic distraction by way of pop music. It piles trending audio on trending audio into one endless slop scroll of everything you love and everything you hate, all mixed together. Keep scrolling as ICE raids continue, as some are thwarted, as already marginalized people become at even greater risk of violence and deportation.
