R&B artist JMSN has threatened the Trump White House with legal action over its use of his song "Love Me" in a political ad, with former Obama White House ethics lawyer Norm Eisen signing the cease-and-desist demand that the ad be pulled from every platform and every airing accounted for.
The dispute is the latest instance of an entertainer insisting his brand outranks political speech — but this time, the legal muscle isn't just some entertainment lawyer. It's partisan Washington infrastructure. Democracy Defenders Action's Norm Eisen and attorneys from Ballard Spahr LLP sent the letter to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles on Monday, according to HuffPost. They claim the track, released in 2023, was used "without a synchronization license, master use license, or any other authorization from the copyright holder."
JMSN, whose real name is Christian Berishaj, posted on social media that he would "never authorize my music to be used for ANY political agenda or campaign" and accused the White House of using the song illegally. He framed it bluntly: either Trump's team asks and gets told no, or "the President illegally uses the song without asking but still the public goes full retard and immediately assumes that a license was granted."
HuffPost described the ad as "taxpayer-funded" and "controversial," promoting the president ahead of the 2026 midterms. The legal team's demands go well beyond pulling the song. They want a full written accounting of "every airing and posting of the Advertisement, including the date, time, network or station, market, program, and total media spend." They also want the administration to instruct every carrier that ran the ad to stop, and to remove all copies from Facebook, X, TikTok, and YouTube.
That's not just a copyright claim — that's a discovery demand dressed up as a cease-and-desist. Eisen, a persistent legal antagonist of the Trump administration, is using an artist's valid copyright interest as a vehicle to extract operational data from the White House.
The letter also claims the ad risks creating "a false endorsement or association, suggesting that JMSN is connected with or affiliated with this Administration." This is the standard celebrity playbook: object to a politician using your music, then claim fans might confuse you for a supporter. It's a legal argument, but it rests on the assumption that an artist's reputation is more important than a campaign's right to license music in the marketplace.
JMSN stressed his independence: "I've built my career independently outside of any major system and have made it a point to not sacrifice my artistic integrity. I don't have a publicist or anything so being forced in a situation like this and having to comment is ridiculous." Fair enough. But the legal operation behind him isn't independent at all — it's Democratic-aligned Washington infrastructure doing what it does.
The other outlets in this story's orbit had nothing on the JMSN dispute. Breitbart covered Trump's AI lunch with tech executives; Atlanta Black Star covered the same event, highlighting a staffer blocking a camera after a reporter asked about Trump's past AI comments; Europe Says reported on an appeals court upholding sanctions against Trump's attorneys in his IRS lawsuit. None touched the JMSN story.
Copyright law protects artists from unauthorized use — that protection doesn't vanish because the user is the White House. But when partisan legal operatives weaponize an artist's claim to extract spending data and impose compliance costs on an administration, the line between protecting intellectual property and harassing a political opponent gets thin.
The question nobody's answering: if the White House had simply licensed the song and JMSN refused, would Eisen's group still be involved? Or does the copyright claim only matter because it's a lever against Trump?
