Donald Trump Jr., Kimberly Guilfoyle blocked from entering post-debate spin room

Former first son Donald Trump Jr. and his fiancée, Kimberly Guilfoyle, were prevented from entering the spin room following Wednesday night’s first Republican debate after former President Donald Trump opted not to take part.

“I’d been told by others that I would be able to go in,” Trump Jr. told reporters after a Fiserv Forum security guard turned him away. “Fox won’t let me into the spin room. They’re telling him, he works for security here, but they’re telling him that I’m not allowed to go in there.”

“Because the candidates that they’ve been boosting while trying to cut down Trump for the last, what, two years didn’t perform as they had hoped,” he went on. “So they can’t have someone who can maybe be a representative of my father.”

In political parlance, the “spin room” refers to the area where candidates and their surrogates gather after each debate to talk up their performance to the media while tearing down their rivals.

“It shouldn’t surprise any of us and it’s also why Trump was 100% right to not go to this debate,” Trump Jr. added.

Eight Republican candidates participated in the debate, which ran for roughly two hours and was moderated by Fox News chief political anchor Bret Baier and “The Story” host Martha MacCallum.

Trump, 77, opted out of the first GOP primary debate and instead sat down with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson for an interview that aired on X, formerly known as Twitter, during the first half of the event.

Fox News co-hosted the debate with the Republican National Committee, which set donor and polling requirements for the candidates and also asked each to sign a pledge to support the party’s eventual nominee.

The network banned surrogates of candidates who either did not attend or did not qualify for the debate from the spin room unless they were guests of another media organization.

Trump Jr., Guilfoyle and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) were kept out, but Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), another Trump surrogate, got into the room for an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity.

“I’ve gotta call balls and strikes, this is no different than what we see from the Democrats,” Trump Jr. said after being barred from entering.

The former president’s son and his fiancée both have shows on the video streaming service Rumble, which streamed the debate online.

Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller also was seen in the spin room — despite a security flyer earlier in the night identifying him and fellow Trump staffers Justin Caparole and Danny Tiso as “not approved for entry” to the arena.