The White House has been busted using a sneaky trick to drown out the boos from President Donald Trump’s Kennedy Center visit.
The president, 79, and first lady Melania, 55, attended the premiere of the musical Chicago at the MAGA-fied arts institution on Tuesday night. Despite Trump’s efforts to make the iconic venue over in his image, loud jeers punctuated the cheers as he took his seat.
But the Trump administration’s retelling of events left out the shouts of disapproval in the crowd.
A video shared by Rapid Response 47, an official White House news account on X, showed the president and first lady waving to the crowd, which sounded much more jovial than in other clips from the evening.
“President Trump enters the Kennedy Center to loud cheers. Some boos, but the crowd drowned them out with more cheers,” Daily Caller reporter Reagan Reese wrote on X, posting from the Kennedy Center. Her video was shot from the same angle as the White House’s and also showed Trump’s introduction.
However, in Reese’s video the boos and jeering were much more evident. It appears that there were two warring factions, with the cheering camp trying to drown out those who were booing.
MAGA journalist Eric Daugherty offered his own version of events. He said the crowd “ABSOLUTELY ERUPTED” when Trump entered with Melania. “The man of the hour everywhere he goes,” he added.
However, the video he shared included loud boos as well as cheering. Video posted by CBS News reporter Aaron Navarro also captured the pair receiving a mixed response.
The Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post reported that the president was “mostly cheered.” Bezos has bent the knee to Trump more than any other billionaire during his second administration, and his company, Amazon, bankrolled the Melania documentary flop that premiered at the Kennedy Center earlier this year.
Trump, in his efforts to control the Kennedy Center, affixed his name to the facade, torpedoed the bipartisan board, and overhauled the programming to make it more MAGA-friendly.
Asked for comment by the White House, spokesperson Liz Huston said that “President Trump saved the Trump-Kennedy Center,” and added that “he was warmly welcomed by the crowd at the opening night of Chicago.”
