Days after returning to office for his second term last year, President Donald Trump announced a plan to transform the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, announcing that he would be appointing himself as chairman of its board.
Yesterday, Trump declared the center will close for roughly two years to allow for extensive renovations, despite previously saying that “within a year, the Kennedy Center will be finished.”
Roughly a year ago, Trump gutted the center’s existing board of trustees and ousted its chairman, billionaire philanthropist David Rubenstein.
“At my direction, we are going to make the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., GREAT AGAIN,” Trump said in a post to Truth Social last February. “We will soon announce a new Board, with an amazing Chairman, DONALD J. TRUMP!”
When first announcing his planned changes for the center, Trump specifically mentioned drag shows, which he announced would “STOP.”
A couple days later, Trump appointed Richard Grenell, a longtime confidant already serving in multiple administration positions, to lead the Kennedy Center on a temporary basis.
In April, a week’s worth of events at the center celebrating LGBTQ+ rights were canceled.
Days after Trump’s initial announcement, television producer Shonda Rhimes, who served as the board’s treasurer, stepped down from her position. “Insecure” star Issa Rae canceled an event, and in early March, the acclaimed musical “Hamilton” announced that it would cancel its upcoming shows following Trump’s actions.
In December, the center’s board voted to rename it after both John F. Kennedy and Trump.
“The Kennedy Center Board of Trustees voted unanimously today to name the institution The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts,” center spokeswoman Roma Daravi said in a statement.
Several acts canceled their performances at the venue following the name change, including the longtime host of the center’s Christmas Eve jazz performance, another jazz group set to perform on New Year’s Eve, New York City-based dance company Doug Varone and Dancers, and folk singer-songwriter Kristy Lee. Composer Philip Glass also withdrew his symphony based on Abraham Lincoln last week.
Grenell has dismissed the cancellations as “a form of derangement syndrome” in a post to X.
Rep. Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat and an ex-officio trustee of the center, filed a lawsuit to challenge the renaming. She alleged that the vote by the board of trustees went beyond the authority given to it by Congress.
CNN’s Betsy Klein, Piper Hudspeth Blackburn, Kevin Liptak, Kaanita Iyer, Alejandra Jaramillo and Tierney Sneed contributed to this reporting.