In a surprising twist of politics and pop culture, President Donald Trump on Monday reportedly praised actress Sydney Sweeney as a symbol of conservative values triumphing in the culture wars—triggering a storm of reactions on both sides of the political aisle.
Fox News host Jesse Watters took it a step further, suggesting that Sweeney might soon become part of the Trump family by marrying the president’s 19-year-old son, Barron.
The controversy stems from Sweeney’s appearance in a new American Eagle jeans campaign, which drew outsized criticism from some progressive corners of the internet who accused the ad—featuring the blue-eyed, blonde actress—of promoting fascist aesthetics.
Watters, during his appearance on The Five, was unapologetic in his defense of the campaign and the broader backlash against left-wing cultural commentary.
“They’ve called a blonde-haired, blue-eyed actress a Nazi for a week,” Watters said, referencing the online uproar. “This is a Madison Avenue campaign thing that they’ve done since the ’80s. They’ve done it with brown-eyed girls, Blacks, and blondes.”
Watters argued that Democrats have repeatedly lost ground in the cultural landscape. “Trump, who is in the culture because he watches TV all the time, seizes on this, champions this great American clothing company, and the Democrats lose another culture war battle,” he said. “They are like the Cleveland Browns of politics.”
Riffing on left-wing claims of fascist dog-whistling, Watters added, “When I hear someone has good genes, I think hot parents. I don’t think Hitler. They think Hitler all the time, and the CEO is Jewish. He’s not thinking Hitler. He’s thinking sex sells.”
In Watters’ view, the campaign’s success speaks for itself: “The stock’s up 20%. Now every girl wants to look like her and every guy wants to look at her,” he said. “And you know how this ends? She’s gonna marry Barron, and it’s going to create the greatest political dynasty in American history.”
The tongue-in-cheek remark may have raised eyebrows, but it captured the spirit of a conservative cultural movement increasingly willing to embrace celebrity and aesthetics as tools in the fight against progressive orthodoxy.
President Trump echoed the sentiment on his Truth Social platform. “Sidney Sweeney, a registered Republican, has the HOTTEST ad out there,” he wrote, initially misspelling her name. “It’s for American Eagle, and the jeans are ‘flying off the shelves.’ Go get ’em Sidney.”
Trump didn’t stop at praise. He contrasted the campaign’s success with what he called a “disaster” from Jaguar, which recently ran a “woke” advertisement that Trump claimed led to the CEO’s resignation. “Shouldn’t they have learned a lesson from Bud Lite, which went Woke and essentially destroyed… the Company,” he wrote, pointing to lost market capitalization and consumer backlash.
Trump also took aim at pop star Taylor Swift, continuing his long-running feud with the singer. “Just look at Woke singer Taylor Swift. Ever since I alerted the world… that I can’t stand her,” he posted.
Sweeney, who has previously identified as a Republican and faced criticism for family members wearing MAGA attire at a birthday party, has largely stayed silent during the latest controversy.
But in a news cycle where cultural identity is inseparable from political identity, her jeans ad has become a lightning rod for a deeper debate over who controls the narrative in America’s public square.
In the eyes of many conservatives, Sweeney represents a rare instance of a young Hollywood figure inadvertently pushing back against progressive cultural dominance—simply by existing unapologetically.
And now, perhaps with a little political matchmaking from Watters, the battle over her image has taken on an almost dynastic tone.
