Ariana Grande has once again criticized the Trump administration for using her music in a social media post. This time, the Team Trump account featured her song “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait For Your Love)” in a TikTok post that tagged the Grammy-winning singer.
The post, uploaded by Trump’s team on Thursday, showed clips of the president approaching a podium to speak, with text from Grande’s 2024 hit song overlaid on the video. The text included a controversial statement about men, babies, and women’s sports. Grande responded in the comments section, demanding that her music not be used again and calling out the perceived falsehood in the statement.
The sound was later removed from the post, and Grande’s comment was apparently deleted, although screenshots of it were reposted by viewers. This incident follows Grande’s previous criticism of the administration in mid-June for using her song “Bye” in a TikTok video related to immigration policy.
Grande joins a long list of artists, including Taylor Swift and ABBA, who have objected to the Trump team using their music. Various artists, such as Neil Young, Queen, the Rolling Stones, and Beyoncé, have also expressed disapproval of Trump’s use of their music in campaigns and social media posts.
While political campaigns can obtain licensing to use music legally, individual artists have the right to opt-out or object to the use of their songs. Some artists, like Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny, have taken steps to have their music removed from Team Trump’s social videos through copyright claims.
Overall, artists continue to push back against the unauthorized use of their music by political campaigns and organizations.