Displaying the kind of irony that would be deemed too on-the-nose for a major motion picture, the Trump White House has requested a private screening of Steven Spielberg’s The Post, a movie about a corrupt president’s attempts to obstruct reporting and free speech – the very same week they attempted to block the publication of a book critical of Mr. Trump.
The White House routinely requests access to new releases for private screenings at the presidential residence and at Camp David, where Trump will host a summit with GOP lawmakers this weekend. 20th Century Fox, which released The Post, has provided the movie to the administration in both locations, THR reports.
The film’s stars presumably haven’t been invited. Meryl Streep has been openly critical of the president, particularly in a fiery Golden Globe speech early last year, which prompted our endlessly classy and thick-skinned leader to call her an “over-rated” “Hillary flunky.” Her co-star, Tom Hanks, has been equally critical of the president, going so far as to preemptively decline an invite to view the film at the White House. “I didn’t think things were going to be this way last November,” he admitted to THR. “I would not have been able to imagine that we would be living in a country where neo-Nazis are doing torchlight parades in Charlottesville and jokes about Pocahontas are being made in front of the Navajo code talkers. And individually we have to decide when we take to the ramparts. You don’t take to the ramparts necessarily right away, but you do have to start weighing things… In some ways, our personal choices are going to have to reflect our opinions. We have to start voting, actually, before the election. So, I would probably vote not to go.”
It’s worth noting that a request from the White House doesn’t mean Trump himself will actually sit down and watch The Post. And if he did, as we all know, he’d probably watch 20 minutes before making them switch it to Bloodsport.