His allies have warned that it could be permanent if his name is not added to the iconic arts venue.
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Did President Donald Trump close the Kennedy Center — and is he considering demolishing it — because he can’t put his name on the iconic arts venue named after one of America’s most famous presidents?
That question is being asked a lot in Washington after the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts closed this week for at least two years, ostensibly for a roughly $250 million overhaul. Trump allies on the center’s board say the renovations are necessary and have warned that, without Trump’s name, it could close forever.
I think the Trump administration should be recognized,” Trump told reporters this week. “Because frankly, if we don’t do that, it’s going to close, it will end up being ripped down.” Trump was also photographed holding a paper that appears to reference the potential demolition of the Kennedy Center.
Here’s what’s going on with the venue and why it’s such a big deal.
Trump got into office and almost immediately sent the Kennedy Center into turmoil. He installed himself as chairman and stocked the center’s board with loyalists. Many artists stopped coming, fundraising was abysmal and ticket sales plummeted.
Trump’s loyalists voted this week to shut down the entire venue for at least two years for repairs. Trump’s allies cite plaster falling during a storm earlier this month and say it needs hundreds of millions of dollars in renovations.
The Kennedy Center is certainly aging, but critics sees the shutdown as an overreaction — and a pretext to try to get what he really wants, which is his name on the building.
“His argument doesn’t make a lot of sense,” said Jordan Libowitz of the government watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “The Kennedy Center was doing fine, and it all falls apart after he takes over, and now he’s claiming they would need to close it because it’s not the Trump Center, and that’s why they’ve had trouble filling shows since he took it over.”
Trump’s attempts to add his name to the venue have resulted in a very public demonstration of the limits of his power, more so than his other struggling attempts to remake federal landmarks.
Trump’s name was briefly emblazoned on the front of the building (“The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts”) before a judge ordered it taken down in May.
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“Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name,” U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper wrote in his opinion, “and only Congress can change it.” Trump’s name was removed in the dead of night on a weekend, with the proof covered by tarps.
Trump hasn’t stopped fighting in court. If anything, he’s upped the ante after winning the battle to build his White House ballroom: The Kennedy Center closed on the same day this week that the judge again barred Trump from putting his name back on the building. New evidence emerged in court Thursday showing Trump reviewing a printout apparently related to the center’s potential demolition. He’s hinted he could take this to the Supreme Court.
Trump and his trustees at the center are his administration deserves to have its name on the building in some way in exchange for rescuing the financially troubled institution.. The Justice Department has also argued in court that the building faces “terminal decline” without Trump’s experience as a real estate developer and fundraising prowess.
There are expected to be more court battles about whether Trump can shut the center down.
Trump appears to be running the Kennedy Center the way he governs: by doing what he wants, Meredith McGehee, a government ethics expert who formerly led the bipartisan political reform group Issue One. “He often says, ‘I’m the president; I can do anything,’” she said.
She and other democracy activists say it’s fair to extend those concerns to how Trump might try to intervene in elections. He’s lost multiple court cases and legislative pushes to change the way Americans vote. But many election officials are still preparing for scenarios where Trump tries to rewrite election rules at the last minute or send troops to the polls.
“You have to worry when any powerful politician seems to say they’re either above the law, or they don’t care about the law, or the law is ‘my’ interpretation,” said McGehee, who serves on the National Task Force on Election Crises. “And in this case, with Trump, he has over time kind of said each of these.”
Amber Phillips writes The 5-Minute Fix newsletter, a quick analysis of the day’s biggest political news. Send her an email here, or ask a question that could be featured in an upcoming newsletter.
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