U.S. News

“Are you getting in?”

”No, are you?”

On Thursday afternoon, in the lobby of the Trump Kennedy Center, reporters whispered in hushed voices to each other to see which journalists, if any, would be allowed entry to a screening of Melania Trump’s documentary “Melania.”

In the hours before the film screened (press check-in began at 2 p.m. for the 6 p.m. carpet), there was slight optimism from veteran reporters, accustomed to slipping their way into Trump World, that they’d be able to network their way into a seat. But by 6:30 p.m., when members of the administration began walking the carpet, it became clear that most of the mainstream press would be blocked from attending the Amazon MGM Studios film.

Reporters from The New York Times, The Washington Post, AP and Vanity Fair, among dozens of other outlets on the carpet, were not granted tickets to the invite-only screening in the Opera House, located one floor above the carpet. The only press from the carpet allowed into the screening (not counting those separately invited) were One America News anchor Dan Ball and his wife Peyton Drew, a producer for the far-right news channel.