WASHINGTON—In a town where access is everything, if you want to be influential, you have to go to all the right events.

It’s why people lined up for hours in the freezing cold to get into last year’s Inaugural Balls. It’s why, as we speak, congressional staffers and think tank flaks are jockeying to get invites to all the swankiest Christmas parties. And it’s why a couple of legacy media outlets are reportedly spinning their wheels to get invited to this Sunday’s Kennedy Center Honors.

The Associated Press and New York Times “are scrambling and begging” for press credentials just days before the event, Kennedy Center Vice President of Public Relations Roma Daravi wrote on X this week.

“The date didn’t sneak up on anyone,” she added. “They knew it was coming. They just didn’t bother.”

The @AP and @nytimes are scrambling and begging for @kencen Honors press credentials at the last minute. 3 days before the show…

It’s the 48th Honors. The date didn’t sneak up on anyone. They knew it was coming. They just didn’t bother.

— Roma Daravi (@romadaravi) December 4, 2025

This year’s class of honorees includes Michael Crawford, the Tony Award-winning singer who originated the titular role of the Phantom of the Opera on Broadway; disco legend Gloria Gaynor and country music star George Strait; “Rocky” star Sylvester Stallone; and the band KISS.

The Kennedy Center Honors are always a star-studded affair, and this year is no exception. Expected guests include Tommy Hilfiger, Kurt Russell, and Garth Brooks, The Daily Caller reported this week. Inside-the-Beltway VIPs include House Speaker Mike Johnson, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.

President Donald Trump will host this year’s honors in lieu of a celebrity master of ceremonies. First Lady Melania Trump is also expected to be in attendance.

This year also marks the debut of new medals for honorees, designed exclusively for the Kennedy Center by Tiffany & Co.

This year’s honors, which will air on CBS on December 23, come at a pivotal time for the Kennedy Center. Trump has made overhauling the cultural institution a priority in his second term, as The Daily Wire has chronicled extensively. Trump and Kennedy Center Director Richard Grenell have pushed to rectify the Kennedy Center’s financial situation and revamp its offerings.

The Trump administration’s reform efforts have made the Kennedy Center a political flashpoint. Recently, Democrat Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (RI) claimed that the Center was “being looted to the tune of millions of dollars in foregone revenue, cancelled programming, unpaid use of its facilities, and wasteful spending on luxury restaurants and hotels — an unprecedented pattern of self-dealing, favoritism, and waste.”

“The press and the Senator should be ashamed of the lies they print and reprint — we want a cultural center for all Americans but they push lies to sow division amongst Americans for their selfish moment in a headline,” Daravi said in response to Whitehouse’s allegations.

Sources close to the matter tell The Daily Wire that the Times and the AP claim they missed the email inviting them to apply for press credentials. While neither outlet responded to a request for comment, Daravi addressed the missed email claims, saying simply, “They’ve had 48 years to prepare.”

Full disclosure: The Daily Wire will be in attendance at the 48th Kennedy Center Honors. We didn’t miss the email.

The European Union fined Elon Musk’s X $140 million on Friday as the bloc targets American social media companies under its expansive internet accountability regulations.

The European Commission, which is the European Union’s executive branch, accused Elon Musk’s company of deceiving its users, failing to meet advertising transparency requirements, and failing to give researchers access to the platform’s data. The commission argues that X violated its Digital Services Act, regulations put into place in 2022 that are designed to clamp down on what it views as illegal content and misinformation on social media.

Before the fine was officially announced, Vice President JD Vance ripped the European Union for planning to impose the penalties against X.

“Rumors swirling that the EU commission will fine X hundreds of millions of dollars for not engaging in censorship. The EU should be supporting free speech not attacking American companies over garbage,” Vance wrote.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio added, “The European Commission’s $140 million fine isn’t just an attack on @X, it’s an attack on all American tech platforms and the American people by foreign governments. The days of censoring Americans online are over.”

The European Commission’s top complaint against X on Friday is that the social media company allows any user to “obtain the ‘verified’ status without the company meaningfully verifying who is behind the account, making it difficult for users to judge the authenticity of accounts and content they engage with.” The commission said that the Digital Services Act does not require platforms to verify users, but added that the regulation “clearly prohibits online platforms from falsely claiming that users have been verified, when no such verification took place.”

“Deceiving users with blue checkmarks, obscuring information on ads and shutting out researchers have no place online in the EU,” said Henna Virkkunen, the executive vice president for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy.” DSA protects users. The DSA gives researchers the way to uncover potential threats. The DSA restores trust in the online environment. With the DSA’s first non-compliance decision, we are holding X responsible for undermining users’ rights and evading accountability.”

Musk also responded to the commission’s complaint, writing on X that his goal with X’s verification system “was to democratize verification, rather than have it be controlled by a group of biased elites!”

The European Union’s move against X was condemned by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, with FCC Chair Brendan Carr saying that Europe is “taxing Americans.”

“Once again, Europe is fining a successful U.S. tech company for being a successful U.S. tech company,” Carr said. “Europe is taxing Americans to subsidize a continent held back by Europe’s own suffocating regulations.”

Conservatives have argued that the Digital Services Act is a way for Europe to clamp down on free speech, even for Americans.

“The DSA can impact anyone, can impact content creators and influencers and preachers and political dissidents and any kind of content online can be regulated by the DSA through its architecture,” Dr. Adina Portaru, a senior counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom International, told The Daily Wire earlier this year.

X was given 60 days to inform the European Commission of how it plans to address the issues laid out by the bloc. The social media platform has 90 days to submit an “action plan” to the commission, and the Board of Digital Services will then have one month to issue its opinion and another month to release its final decision.