White House Denies Role In Jay-Z, Beyonce Cuba Visit: What Made The White House Respond To ‘Open Letter’?

After rapper and entertainment mogul Jay-Z released a song with lyrics describing himself as having gotten "White House clearance" for he and Beyoncé's anniversary visit to Cuba, President Barack Obama's spokesman denied on Thursday that the White House had any role in approving the visit. The song appeared to strike back at critics of the trip.

Jay Carney, the White House spokesman, commented.

"I guess nothing rhymes with Treasury (Department)," he said. "I am absolutely saying the White House, from the president on down, had nothing to do with anybody's personal -- anybody's travel to Cuba. That is something that Treasury (Department) handles."

"I done turned Havana into Atlanta," Jay-Z raps in his recently released "Open Letter." "Boy from the hood, but got White House clearance ... Obama said, 'chill, you going to get me impeached'/but you don't need this sh*t anyway/Chill with me on the beach."

He also addresses his recent divesting of his stake in the Brooklyn Nets, the basketball franchise whose brand he has had a heavy hand in promoting, rapping, "I still own the building, I'm still keeping my seat." The rapper, whose real name is Shawn Carter, still operates a number of businesses in the Barclay Center, including a nightclub and a clothing store which he owns.

At Thursday's White House briefing, a reporter read aloud the lyrics of the song to Carney, who responded, "It's a song. The president's not communicating with Jay-Z over this trip."

Three Cuban-American members of Congress, Republicans from south Florida -- a longtime conservative stronghold and home of exiles from the Castro-led regime -- have lashed out at the couple over their trip to Cuba. Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart wrote a letter to the Treasury Department when news of the trip first broke, asking for proof that it had been approved in addition to criticizing the couple for visiting an island run by what they called a "cruel, repressive, and murderous regime". Senator Marco Rubio, who also supports scaling back the granting of licenses for travel to the island, said that the visit was a good example of the way that "since their inception, the Obama Administration's 'people to people' cultural exchange programs have been abused by tourists who ... either don't realize or don't care that they're essentially funding the regime's systematic trampling of people's human rights."

In response to these criticisms, Jay-Z raps in "Open Letter," "I'm in Cuba, I love Cubans/ this Communist talk is so confusing/when it's from China, the very mic that I'm using."