The Sydney Sweeney “good jeans” campaign is the gift that keeps on giving for American Eagle. The apparel brand has seen its stock price skyrocket and market capitalization rise as the viral ads continue to cause a stir – and even elicit a response from the White House.
President Donald Trump entered the conversation on Monday with a biting Truth Social post that deemed Sweeney and AE “hot” and Jaguar not for its “woke” rebrand that just led to the CEO’s ouster.
On Monday’s show, Megyn was joined by Michael Knowles, host of The Michael Knowles Show, to discuss President Trump’s take and why this has become such a raging culture war issue.
The Latest
Despite leftists accusing American Eagle of promoting eugenics, “white supremacy,” and “Nazi propaganda” with its latest ads featuring the Euphoria star, the brand doubled down in its first public comments since the campaign launched.
“‘Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans’ is and always was about the jeans. Her jeans. Her story,” AE posted on social media Friday. “We’ll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way. Great jeans look good on everyone.”
Since then, American Eagle has posted additional photos and behind-the-scenes videos from the Sweeney shoot and the 27 year old’s voter registration has surfaced. Citing public voter records, The New York Post reported the actress has been registered with the Republican Party of Florida in Monroe County since June 2024.
Trump Weighs In
It was perhaps some combination of those things that led President Trump to enter the chat. On Truth Social Monday morning, he praised the “registered Republican” for having “the ‘HOTTEST’ ad out there” that has jeans “flying off the shelves.” His message: “Go get ‘em Sydney!”
The president then used the success of the American Eagle ads to throw shade at Jaguar, who just saw its CEO resign following a controversial “woke” makeover that went over like a lead balloon. Here’s a reminder of just how weird things got for the British carmaker:
“On the other side of the ledger, Jaguar did a stupid, and seriously WOKE advertisement, THAT IS A TOTAL DISASTER! The CEO just resigned in disgrace, and the company is in absolute turmoil,” Trump wrote. “Who wants to buy a Jaguar after looking at that disgraceful ad. Shouldn’t they have learned a lesson from Bud Lite, which went Woke and essentially destroyed, in a short campaign, the Company. The market cap destruction has been unprecedented, with BILLIONS OF DOLLARS SO FOOLISHLY LOST.”
The commander in chief likened the downfall to that of “Woke singer Taylor Swift,” who he said was “booed out of the Super Bowl and became, NO LONGER HOT.”
Trump’s takeaway: “The tide has seriously turned — Being WOKE is for losers, being Republican is what you want to be. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
Marketing 101
Megyn called the president’s post “one of the classic Trump tweets of all time – and that’s saying something.” And she believes he was correct in his assessment of how American Eagle and Jaguar so radically diverged.
“Now, you’ve got the Dylan Mulvaney of sports cars, and guess what? No one wanted one. Trump is 100 percent right,” she noted. “They just canned their loser… CEO who was all about Pride and leaned into that weird messaging, tanking the brand… Jaguar really is the Bud Light of cars, and American Eagle went a different route and is rolling in money.”
In Knowles’ view, the Sweeney ads are “marketing 101” and yet they read as countercultural in 2025 because of how untethered culture has become. “The American Eagle ad is this rediscovery of marketing 101, that when you put very beautiful people in a product, you sell more of that product. And I’m sure this conversation actually did take place in the boardroom,” he said. “I’m sure that when they pitched this ad, they said, ‘Look, we’re going to do something really, really edgy that hasn’t been done for 10 years. It’s going to be the opposite of that Jaguar eunuch, androgynous commercial from six months ago. We’re going to put a really hot lady in the jeans and say: This lady is really hot. Buy the jeans.'”
Where the Jaguar rebrand was “all jumbled in a way that is totally incoherent and naturally repellent,” Knowles said, the AE campaign marked a return to normalcy that Trump and his supporters understand.
“They could have made commercials with a guy. They could have made commercials with people of other races. They could have done any number of commercials that would have worked,” he concluded. “[Sweeney] happens to be the Hollywood starlet at the moment, and Trump is this absolute culture vulture who just gets where the winds are moving.”
You can check out Megyn’s full analysis by tuning in to episode 1,121 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.