A carefully curated audience turned hostile on President Trump at a private event held in a building bearing his own name, delivering a stinging rebuke that underscored how even his presumed allies are willing to publicly reject him. The April 23, 2026, gathering at the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace in Washington drew journalists, executives, and dignitaries — but when Trump departed, boos filled the room.
Outside, merger opponents rallied against the Paramount/WBD deal, with protesters flipping off the presidential motorcade as it arrived. But the jeers that stung most didn’t come from street protesters. Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison’s son, Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison — who hosted the event — and CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss were among those present, alongside a group of CBS News correspondents. Ellison organized the dinner as his company seeks federal approval for a $111 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and other administration officials in attendance. Media and tech circles, widely viewed as increasingly sympathetic to the administration, demonstrated that Trump cannot count on warm receptions simply because a venue carries his name or an audience seems handpicked.
Last month, President Trump and the first lady were greeted with a mix of cheers and boos when they appeared in the presidential box for the opening night of “Chicago” at the Kennedy Center on March 24, 2026. The reception came as the couple attended one of the final productions before the venue — which Trump renamed the Trump-Kennedy Center after taking it over last year — closes in July for a two-year renovation. While White House spokesperson Liz Huston insisted Trump was “warmly welcomed by the crowd,” video clips circulated online captured audible jeers alongside the applause.
The night took an additional turn when Eugene Ramirez, a former Sinclair national news anchor, said he was briefly detained by security after booing and giving the president a thumbs-down. Ramirez told the Washington Blade that a security official told him, “They don’t want booing,” and held him in a separate area until the house lights dimmed before allowing him to return to his seat.
The reception echoed Trump’s June 2025 appearance at the opening night of “Les Misérables” at the same venue, where he was also met with a mix of cheers and protests — reflecting the broader backlash to his takeover of the Kennedy Center, which has prompted artist cancellations and ongoing legal challenges over both the renaming and the planned closure.
Three months after his return to the White House, the hostility to Trump had reached the chamber of the U.S. House. Trump’s State of the Union address on Feb. 24, 2026, ran 1 hour and 47 minutes — the longest in American history, which the Northwest Progressive Institute described as a “raw, divisive, ugly” tirade. About 40 Democrats boycotted the speech entirely, including Sen. Patty Murray and roughly half of Washington state’s House delegation. Many staged a People’s State of the Union on the National Mall.
Those who stayed inside did not remain silent. When Trump claimed, “I ended eight wars,” Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan shouted back, “That’s a lie.” When Trump said the Russia-Ukraine war “never would have happened if I were president,” Tlaib demanded, “What are you talking about?” Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota interjected over the deaths of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, telling the president, “You’ve killed Americans.” Trump responded, “You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.”
Sen. Maria Cantwell, whose guest was Secretary Steve Hobbs, pushed back on Trump’s call to nationalize voting and end mail-in ballots, noting that under the Constitution, states run elections. “There is no role for the president,” she said.
On Nov. 9, 2025, Trump attended the Washington Commanders’ game against the Detroit Lions at Northwest Stadium in Landover, Maryland — the first appearance by a sitting president at a regular-season NFL game since Jimmy Carter in 1978. The pageantry was elaborate: an Air Force One flyover, a ceremonial military oath of enlistment, and House Speaker Mike Johnson at his side in the suite.
When the videoboard cut to Trump late in the first half, large sections of fans booed. The reaction repeated at halftime when the stadium announcer introduced him, and continued as he administered the oath to military members on the field. Videos of the moment spread rapidly online, with one widely shared post calling the scene “brutal” and “humiliating.” Trump left before the game ended.
Trump’s appearance at the Libertarian National Convention in Washington on May 25, 2024, proved equally unwelcoming. He was booed and heckled by a raucous audience, with scattered cheers from a smaller pro-Trump faction drowned out by jeers. One attendee shouted that Trump “should have taken a bullet.”
The day before Trump’s speech, NBC News reported that one party member proposed the assembly “go tell Donald Trump to go **** himself,” drawing applause. Trump pressed on anyway, telling the crowd, “If I wasn’t a Libertarian before, I sure as **** am a Libertarian now.”
The Institute of Peace event was meant to be friendlier ground than a stadium or a libertarian floor fight. Ellison’s presence reflected Silicon Valley’s warming posture toward the administration. Weiss, recently installed atop CBS News, represented a media establishment that Trump allies have argued is realigning.
The boos suggested otherwise — that even rooms designed to flatter the president can turn, and that the gap between staged adulation and unscripted reaction continues to widen as the 2026 midterms approach. Two days later, that gap turned dangerous: on April 25, 2026, a gunman opened fire near the security checkpoint at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner at the Washington Hilton, where Trump was in attendance. The suspect, Cole Tomas Allen, was charged on April 27 with attempting to assassinate the president — the third such attempt on Trump’s life since 2024.