A massive crowd gathered outside the White House on Sunday afternoon to protest against President Donald Trump’s immigration order. Inside? Finding Dory was being screened for White House staff and their families. The White House announced the screening at 3 p.m. in its official daily schedule and CBS correspondent Mark Knoller wrote on Twitter that he heard the movie was the Disney-Pixar animated film.
Trump’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, was quick to take to Twitter to say that Trump himself didn’t watch the movie. “He spent 60 seconds welcoming & thanking spouses & children of WH staff then right back to work,” Spicer wrote.
No matter, social media had a field day with the news, pointing out the irony in the movie that was selected, considering it’s all about a separated family that travels the ocean in the hopes of getting back together. One of those who pointed this out was Albert Brooks, who is the voice of Marlin in the film. “Odd that Trump is watching Finding Dory today, a movie about reuniting with family when he’s preventing it in real life,” he wrote on Twitter.
Ellen DeGeneres, who is the voice of Dory, didn’t make reference to the movie but did speak up against the immigration ban on Twitter after news broke of the screening. “For me, America is great because of all the people who came here. Not in spite of them,” she wrote.
Many others chimed in, including Judd Apatow, who said Trump “relates to Ellen’s character who has no attention span.”
