President Trump, Melania Trump and the top ranks of the Trump administration descended on the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts on Thursday night for the premiere of “Melania,” a documentary the first lady executive produced.
“It’s glamorous, very glamorous,” the president explained as his wife posed for pictures against huge, glowing sans serif letters spelling out her name.
“We need some glamour,” Mr. Trump added.
But what some saw as glamour, others saw as a blatant act of corporate corruption. Amazon paid $40 million to the first lady’s production company for the film rights and then ponied up another $35 million to promote it. The film’s marketing budget is 10 times what another big documentary would generally get.
As Mr. Trump traipsed before shouting reporters and photographers along a red carpet setup — the carpet was actually black, in keeping with his wife’s preference for black-and-white everything — he was asked if the whole affair wasn’t really just an attempt by Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, and his executives to get in good with the Trump government.
“I don’t know, really. I’m not involved,” he said. “It was done with my wife. I think it’s a very important movie. It shows life in the White House. It’s a big deal, actually.”
Another reporter who tried asking him about the film’s exorbitant price tag got a slightly different response. “I think you have to go and ask President Obama, who got paid a lot of money and hasn’t done anything,” Mr. Trump replied. “If you take a look at others, they’ve been paid a lot of money, but this is somebody, Melania, who really produced, she’s done a great thing.”
He said that “Melania” was “a very important piece of work.”
The piece of work seemed almost beside the point. The night was not about film, it was about power. The whole spectacle was a vivid manifestation of the grip Mr. Trump has on his party and this town.
The upper echelons of Washington’s power structure — cabinet members, senators and the House speaker — all came out in the 14 degree weather to a building that Mr. Trump took control over and then named after himself to help him celebrate this movie that his wife produced about herself.
It was Mr. and Mrs. Trump’s tremendous Trump movie night at the Trump center. Grab the milk duds.
Half the president’s cabinet showed up. There were Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. And there was Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the health secretary. The building he was standing in was constructed as a memorial to his slain uncle, President John F. Kennedy. What did his nephew think about Mr. Trump renaming the place “The Trump Kennedy Center”?
“It was made as a memorial for the nation because my uncle is deeply committed to the arts,” Mr. Kennedy responded, “and I think President Trump is also committed to the arts.”
One of the first people to show up was House Speaker Mike Johnson. He was asked if he had any theories as to why Amazon paid $75 million to make and market “Melania.”
“Well, this is the first lady of the United States,” he said. “It’s an important project for history and in every other way, and, you know, I think it’s worth the investment, and I think it will pay off.”
Pay off how, exactly?
“I think the public education component is an invaluable aspect of this film, and I suspect they’ll get their investment back as well,” Mr. Johnson answered.
Mrs. Trump’s business arrangements and much about the rollout of the film were orchestrated by her longtime agent and gatekeeper, Marc Beckman, who was at the premiere. Earlier in the week, he’d given an interview to The Times of London in which he said something revealing about what he described as “Melania’s vision.”
Mr. Beckman said that first with her book and now with the marketing materials she designed for the film, Mrs. Trump was honing an aesthetic ideal — “very symmetrical, right angles, black and white” — that was ultimately “all about supporting this luxury brand that she’s building.”
It sure was an interesting moment for the Trump administration to roll out the black carpet for itself.
Two days ago, the president went to Iowa to try to soothe economic anxieties out in the country. His chief of staff just announced that he will start traveling to do something like that once a week.
His officials know they’ve got problems: A new poll put out last week by The New York Times and Siena University found that only 24 percent of voters thought Mr. Trump had made life more affordable. Less than a third of voters think the country is better off than it was when he returned to the White House a year ago.
“Maybe I have bad public relations people,” Mr. Trump said last week, “but we’re not getting it across.”
At the premiere, Alina Habba, a former personal lawyer to Mr. Trump who served for a short time as U.S. attorney in New Jersey until courts deemed her appointment unlawful, complained to reporters that Vogue has yet to do a cover with Mrs. Trump as first lady. While Ms. Habba railed against the Condé Nast publication, Dr. Mehmet Oz, who oversees Medicaid and Medicare, walked in alongside Steve Witkoff, the president’s special envoy currently trying to end several wars around the globe.
The premiere was happening during a week that the administration found itself on the back foot because of the bloodshed in Minneapolis, where border agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens. Still, one White House official said, there was never even a consideration that this premiere should be rescheduled.
Mr. Trump was asked at the premiere if he was going to pull back in Minnesota. “No, no,” he said. “Not at all.”
Just about every senior White House official showed up with their spouses. Younger West Wing staffers hoping to snag tickets emailed their counterparts in the East Wing asking if they could hook it up.
The guest list was handled by the first lady’s office and Amazon, though in a town that revolves around proximity to the president, whether one was invited to his wife’s movie premiere became in and of itself a kind of status referendum. Well-connected Republicans across various agencies gossiped throughout the week about who got tickets. True VIPs were invited to the unofficial after-party being thrown at Donald Trump Jr.’s members-only club in nearby Georgetown.
Inside the theater, the first lady walked onstage to speak to her audience. “Some have called this a documentary,” she said. “It is not.”
It isn’t?
“It is a creative experience that offers perspectives, insights and moments,” Mrs. Trump said. Then she thanked her husband. The crowd gave him a standing ovation.
Shawn McCreesh is a White House reporter for The Times covering the Trump administration.
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