The White House quietly removed a song from an ICE deportation video after Swedish pop star Zara Larsson called out the administration for using her music without permission.
On September 16, the White House’s official TikTok account posted a video showing ICE agents detaining and handcuffing people. The caption was “Never ending deportations” and the song playing in the background of the clip was Zara Larsson’s 2026 hit “Midnight Sun.”
Larsson was not pleased. She soon posted a video reply on her own TikTok, opening with an “L” gesture.
“I’m just sad. My heart is heavy seeing that,” she said and continued:
“I wish I could speak to whoever made that video. I wish I could help you remember that you and I, we aren’t that different at all. And we’re not that different from the people in the video, either.”
She also took issue with the specific choice of her song.
“It’s so crazy how everything is so meme-ified, especially ‘Midnight Sun,’ which is about feeling connected to nature, the universe, and people, and this just creates this massive divide between people,” she said, before calling those responsible “such f***ing losers.”
The White House quietly removed song from video
The song has since been removed from the post, while the video itself is still up on the account.
This isn’t the first time Larsson’s music has ended up in White House content she didn’t agree with. Earlier this year her 2015 song “Lush Life” was used in a video of Trump dancing, paired with the text “WE LOVE ICE and our law enforcement!”
Larsson made it very clear where she stood the issue: “I love immigrants, I love criminals, I love trans people, I love abortions, I love queers, I love slutty women, I love contraception, I love welfare, I love socialism, I f***ing hate ICE.”
Other artists have also publicly criticized the White House for using their music in similar immigration-enforcement content. SZA previously called the administration “evil” and accused it of “rage-baiting” musicians after her own song appeared in a video promoting ICE raids.
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