Donald Trump's ‘Les Miserables' Appearance Sparks Avalanche of Jokes, Memes
President Donald Trump's attendance at a performance of Les Miserables at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, during which he received cheers and boos from sections of the crowd, triggered a wave of jokes and memes on social media.
Newsweek contacted the White House and the Kennedy Center for comment on Thursday via email and online inquiry form, respectively, outside regular office hours.
Following his second presidential inauguration in January, Trump fired most of the Kennedy Center's board of trustees, replacing them with allies and appointing himself as chairman.
The president attended the show in Washington, D.C., against a backdrop of days of anti-immigration enforcement protests in Los Angeles, some of which have turned violent. In response, his administration ordered 4,000 California National Guard troops and 700 Marines against the wishes of Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom.
On Wednesday, the president and first lady Melania Trump attended the opening night of Les Miserables at the Kennedy Center. Other prominent figures in attendance included Vice President JD Vance, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Footage of the event shows Trump receiving cheers and boos from the audience. According to CNN, one woman appeared to be escorted out after shouting, "Convicted felon, rapist!"
Les Miserables is a musical adaptation of the Victor Hugo novel of the same name. It is set against the backdrop of the 1832 June Rebellion in Paris, a failed insurrection against French King Louis Philippe that was suppressed by government troops.
On X, Newsom shared a screenshot of an NBC News headline about the president's attendance, writing, "Someone explain the plot to him." The post has received more than 60,000 likes and 1.9 million views.
User @BlueATLGeorgia, a pro-Democrat account with 39,000 followers, wrote: "Les Misérables is a story of social unrest, especially the June Rebellion, where young idealists rise up against inequality and government oppression.
"Young people fight for justice, calling for reforms and dignity for the poor. The government responds to the rebellion with heavy force, resulting in bloodshed. Sound familiar?"
A Michigan business called That Gay Guy Candle Co. wrote: "Trump's going to see Les Mis tonight? That's ironic."
User @Betches_News told its 25,000 followers, "Trump and Melania watching Les Mis at the Kennedy Center tonight like." Below the caption, it shared a photo of a shocked woman asking: "Wait. Is this f*****g play about us?"
User @toyjawn1 wrote, "Trump ... watching Les Mis ... with tickets upwards of the amount of an ordinary person's whole life wages," above a GIF of a man rubbing his face with an iron.
During Thursday's performance, a number of drag performers sat below the presidential box in what one described as a "message of inclusivity."
Before the performance, Trump attended a VIP reception with paid attendees. He told reporters that $10 million was raised for the Kennedy Center.
Kennedy Center Interim Director Richard Grenell, commenting on reports that some actors did not want to perform in front of President Donald Trump,said: "Any performer who isn't professional enough to perform for patrons of all backgrounds, regardless of political affiliation, won't be welcomed. In fact, we think it would be important to out those vapid and intolerant artists to ensure producers know who they shouldn't hire—and that the public knows which shows have political litmus tests to sit in the audience."
Darlene Webb, a Trump supporter who was at the performance, told CNN about the jeers: "I just wanted to clap and yell over it, because at this type of performance I don't think it was good for them to do that, professionally."
Cara Segur, Webb's friend, told the outlet: "Seeing some of the actors and actresses, it looked like they were singing at him, instead of just singing to the crowd. And it felt really powerful and I liked it."
On Saturday, a military parade is due to take place in Washington, D.C., to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army. The day also marks Trump's 79th birthday.
The "No Kings" movement has organized demonstrations against Trump across the U.S., with 1,800 events planned for Saturday.
Related Articles
Iran Threatens to Attack U.S. Forces if Israel Strikes Nuclear SitesDonald Trump's Approval Rating Plunges With MillennialsDonald Trump Issues Next Trade Deal Update After ChinaHow Project 2025 Compares With Trump's Los Angeles Response
2025 NEWSWEEK DIGITAL LLC.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Politico
23 minutes ago
- Politico
White House tries to find messaging balance on Trump's regime change comment
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday sought to explain President Donald Trump's comment suggesting he's open to regime change in Iran, saying that the president 'believes the Iranian people can control their own destiny.' 'If the Iranian regime refuses to come to a peaceful, diplomatic solution, which the president is still interested and engaging in by the way, why shouldn't the Iranian people take away the power of this incredibly violent regime that has been suppressing them for decades?' Leavitt told Fox and Friends. She continued, 'Our posture has not changed. Our military posture has not changed. These were decisive precision strikes that were successful on Saturday evening. But the president is just simply raising a good question that many people around the world are asking.' Over the weekend, the U.S. bombed three Iranian nuclear sites — Fordow, Natanz and Esfahan — entering a conflict between Israel and Tehran just days after Trump said he would make a decision about joining the conflict in two weeks. Though administration officials have repeatedly said the White House did not strike the Iranian nuclear sites to bring about a regime change in the country, Trump floated the idea in a social media post. He did not, however, directly call for a change in Iranian leadership. 'It's not politically correct to use the term, 'Regime Change,' but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn't there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!' Trump said in a Truth Social post over the weekend. A White House official, granted anonymity to discuss the administration's stance, told POLITICO that if the Iranian people were to rise up against the current regime, Trump is not saying the U.S. would contribute — but they also said Trump isn't saying the U.S. wouldn't contribute. 'He's just saying the Iranian people control their own destiny and why wouldn't there be a regime change if the regime is refusing to do what's right by their people,' the official added. Leavitt also told ABC News on Monday that the administration is 'confident' the U.S. bombers 'completely and totally obliterated' all of Iran's nuclear sites. 'The President wouldn't have launched the strikes if we weren't confident in that,' she said. 'So this operation was a resounding success, and administration officials agree with that as well as Israel.' On Sunday, Vice President JD Vance said on NBC's Meet the Press that the strikes on Iran 'substantially delayed their development of a nuclear weapon. And that was the goal of this attack.' Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has advocated for a change in Iranian leadership throughout his career. In recent weeks, Netanyahu has urged the U.S. to join its war against Iran if America wants to remain safe. Iran has already vowed retaliation for the strikes, worrying some about the safety of Americans in the region as well. But the White House official told POLITICO that 'immense preparations' were taken pre-strike to minimize American troops in the region in case of retaliation. On Monday, Leavitt said that the strikes were necessary to keep Americans both in the U.S. and the Middle East safe. 'Just to be clear, this strike on Saturday did make our homeland safer because it took away Iran's ability to create a nuclear bomb,' Leavitt said on Fox. 'This is a regime that threatens death to America and death to Israel and they no longer have the capability to build this nuclear weapon and threaten the world.' Megan Messerly contributed to this report.
Fox News
26 minutes ago
- Fox News
Democrats need their ‘own Trump,' podcaster urges in NY Times
A recent opinion piece in The New York Times said that the key to the Democratic Party succeeding again is having their own version of President Donald Trump. "If the next Democratic nominee wants to build a majority coalition — one that doesn't rely on Republicans running poor-quality candidates to eke out presidential wins and that doesn't write off the Senate as a lost cause — the candidate should attack the Democratic Party itself and offer positions that outflank it from both the right and the left," Galen Druke, host of the "GD Politics" podcast, wrote in a Monday guest essay in The New York Times. "It may seem like an audacious gambit, but a successful candidate has provided them a blueprint: Donald Trump," Druke added. Druke noted that the Democratic Party is "historically unpopular," citing a 2025 Pew Research Center's American Trends Panel and saying that "The Democratic Party's favorability rating is 22 percentage points underwater — 60 percent of respondents view it unfavorably, 38 favorably." He cautioned that Democrats should not look for their own Trump figure who would "violate democratic norms and destabilize American institutions, but rather the one for resetting how Americans view a party and its leaders." Secrets behind Trump's success, Druke said, included the president bucking his own party's stances from both sides of the spectrum. Druke also hinted at the trust Democrats need to rebuild within their base after they "stood by a deeply unpopular president despite clear signs that Democratic voters did not think he was suited to another term." Druke mentioned a recent CNN poll that showed the Democratic Party's favorability rating at a record low among Americans, with 52% to 48% of Democratic-learning voters saying the party is going in the wrong direction. The poll also showed the favorability rating for the Democratic Party at 29%, calling it a "record low" that goes back to 1992, and saying that it was a 20-point drop from January 2021. Druke also said that Democrats should take a page from former President Bill Clinton's playbook and be liberal in terms of healthcare policy, where he says the candidate should push for universal healthcare "far more progressive than the Affordable Care Act," but have more right-leaning policies when it comes to issues like government spending and crime. Democrats should treat social issues similarly, Druke said, adding that the party should "assert that the goal is for all people to be treated with dignity and that Democrats got carried away with ideas that ultimately didn't further that goal." "To be truly successful, the next Democratic nominee will transform how Americans view the Democratic Party as a whole, leading the way to winning voters not currently viewed as 'gettable' in states that have been written off," Druke wrote.
Yahoo
29 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump Warns Against Rising Oil Prices Following Iran Attack
(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump demanded that energy producers push down crude prices following US military strikes on Iran, amid fears that an escalating Middle East conflict and supply disruptions could extend the recent surge on oil markets. Bezos Wedding Draws Protests, Soul-Searching Over Tourism in Venice One Architect's Quest to Save Mumbai's Heritage From Disappearing NYC Congestion Toll Cuts Manhattan Gridlock by 25%, RPA Reports 'EVERYONE, KEEP OIL PRICES DOWN. I'M WATCHING! YOU'RE PLAYING RIGHT INTO THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY. DON'T DO IT!' Trump posted Monday on social media. In a subsequent post, Trump urged the Energy Department to 'DRILL, BABY, DRILL!!! And I mean NOW!!!' Energy Secretary Chris Wright responded in a post on X that 'we're on it.' Iran has warned that Trump's decision to join Israel's military offensive with attacks on its three main nuclear sites would trigger retaliation. Iran's military said it would respond to the US attacks 'proportionately.' Tehran could close the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway at the mouth of the Persian Gulf that carries about a quarter of the world's seaborne oil trade. Although concern has focused on that chokepoint, any possible retaliation could affect other infrastructure key to the region's oil processing and shipment. Roughly 70% to 75% of the crude, condensate and refined products that come out of the Gulf flow through some nine facilities, which could be bottlenecks, said Colby Connelly, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute. GLOBAL REACT: US Bombs Iran, Next Move Is Tehran's Top White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said in a brief interview with Bloomberg Television on Monday that oil markets 'look stable.' 'Right now, there's no signs of serious disruption at all,' he said. Higher prices for oil — as well as the gasoline and jet fuel made from it — would squeeze US consumers whose bank accounts have been stretched in recent years by inflation, a development that could inflict political pain on Trump and Republicans. If the strait is shut to shipping, crude could soar past $130 per barrel, according to a Bloomberg Economics estimate. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said earlier Monday that the US is 'actively and closely monitoring this situation in the Strait of Hormuz and the Iranian regime would be foolish to make that decision.' Global oil benchmarks are roughly 10% higher than they were immediately before Israel attacked Iran earlier this month. But Monday saw markets erase initial gains, as fears began to fade of an immediate disruption of supplies. Brent crude initially surged to $81.40 a barrel, but later dropped below $77. Trump's directive for more US drilling cannot, on its own, spur more oil and gas development. US oil executives have shown little appetite in recent years to dramatically boost output, with the price of West Texas Intermediate at times falling below the cost of production at some sites. Oil companies generally are plotting investment decisions in the US based on long-term price forecasts — not the temporary spike spurred by the attacks on Iran and the fear of supply disruption in the Mideast. Well before the American attack, Trump administration officials discussed the potential for oil supply disruptions that could drive up prices for crude, as well as options for countering any surge, according to people familiar with the matter. The current climb reflects 'the market pricing in the potential for disruption' and not a reaction to any actual loss in supply, Connelly said. Even so, 'there are impacts that are beginning to be felt elsewhere in the world, and the macroeconomic outlook will feel that the longer this goes on, even if there is no actual loss of supply.' Trump's post suggests the emerging oil-price impacts — which could ripple across the economy — are weighing on him. For weeks before the conflict, Trump had praised the fall in oil prices, even to the chagrin of the executives who helped bankroll his 2024 presidential campaign. Yet Trump has limited options to help contain the price impacts at home. While he could tap the US emergency oil stockpile, that reserve has been depleted to about 400 million barrels of crude, about half its capacity. Analysts warn even a strategic release of emergency crude would do little to offset the loss of potentially millions of barrels of crude daily through the Strait of Hormuz, should Iran retaliate by seeding its narrow shipping lanes with naval mines to disrupt traffic. --With assistance from Ari Natter. (Updates with Iran response, Hassett comments starting in fifth paragraph) Luxury Counterfeiters Keep Outsmarting the Makers of $10,000 Handbags Is Mark Cuban the Loudmouth Billionaire that Democrats Need for 2028? Ken Griffin on Trump, Harvard and Why Novice Investors Won't Beat the Pros The US Has More Copper Than China But No Way to Refine All of It Can 'MAMUWT' Be to Musk What 'TACO' Is to Trump? ©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
