Ben Stiller just joined the long list of celebrities who have called out Donald Trump’s White House for using clippings from their films or songs without consent, set to controversial war videos.
The White House posted a video about war that included clips from films such as Braveheart, Superman, Top Gun, Transformers, Iron Man 2, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and Ben Stiller’s 2008 film Tropic Thunder, in which he played the role of Tugg Speedman. The video was captioned, “Justice the American way.”
Never go full retard Ben.
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) March 6, 2026
Ben Stiller reacted to the clip on X (formerly Twitter), and he wrote, “Hey White House, please remove the Tropic Thunder clip. We never gave you permission and have no interest in being a part of your propaganda machine. War is not a movie.”
Meanwhile, Donald Trump Jr. took a leaf from the movie and wrote, reposting a video that included a snippet of Ben Stiller meeting the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy: “Never go full retard, Ben.” For those unversed, “Never go full retard” is a dialogue from Robert Downey Jr.’s character, Kirk Lazarus, who says to Ben Stiller’s character, Tugg Speedman, in the 2008 film.
This is the second time this month alone that an artist has asked The White House not to use their material in videos, especially those endorsing a war. Earlier this week, singer Kesha wrote in a post slamming the White House and Donald Trump. “It’s come to my attention that the White House has used one of my songs on TikTok to incite violence and threaten war. Trying to make light of war is disgusting and inhumane. I absolutely do NOT approve of my music being used to promote violence of any kind,” her statement read.
She continued, “Love always trumps hate. Please love yourself and each other during times like this. This show of blatant disregard for human life and, quite frankly, this attack on all of our nervous systems is the opposite of what I stand for.”
Kesha also referred to President Trump as a “criminal predator” and added, “Also, don’t let this distract us from the fact that criminal predator Donald Trump appears in the Files over a million times.” In a separate X entry, Kesha wrote, “Stop using my music, perverts.”
— kesha (@KeshaRose) March 2, 2026
Several celebs have called out The White House for the same. Previously, Sabrina Carpenter’s song Juno was used in a controversial ICE deportation video.“This video is evil and disgusting. Do not ever involve me or my music to benefit your inhumane agenda,” Sabrina wrote in an X entry.
this video is evil and disgusting. Do not ever involve me or my music to benefit your inhumane agenda.
— Sabrina Carpenter (@SabrinaAnnLynn) December 2, 2025
In addition to Kesha and Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo had called out The White House for using her song without permission. In the comments section of a post and Instagram stories, she slammed the White House for using her track in a video featuring scenes of individuals being detained. “Don’t ever use my songs to promote your racist, hateful propaganda,” Olivia Rodrigo commented on a video.
Last year, the official White House TikTok handle posted a controversial video set to the audio The Fate of Ophelia which was instantly called out by Swifties online. The choice of song was ironic, given how vocal Donald Trump has been as a critic of Taylor Swift.
