WASHINGTON — The President Trump-chaired board of the Kennedy Center voted Thursday to rename the marquee DC performance venue the “Trump-Kennedy Center” — delighting the president and dismaying his critics.
“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,” spokesperson Roma Daravi said in a statement.
“The unanimous vote recognizes that the current Chairman saved the institution from financial ruin and physical destruction. The new Trump Kennedy Center reflects the unequivocal bipartisan support for America’s cultural center for generations to come.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt broke the news Thursday afternoon.
“I have just been informed that the highly respected Board of the Kennedy Center, some of the most successful people from all parts of the world, have just voted unanimously to rename the Kennedy Center to the Trump-Kennedy Center, because of the unbelievable work President Trump has done over the last year in saving the building,” Leavitt wrote on X.
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“Not only from the standpoint of its reconstruction, but also financially, and its reputation. Congratulations to President Donald J. Trump, and likewise, congratulations to President Kennedy, because this will be a truly great team long into the future! The building will no doubt attain new levels of success and grandeur.”
Earlier this month, the U.S. Institute of Peace similarly was renamed in honor of the sitting president, in a nod to his efforts to resolve various world conflicts.
Trump, who once dreamed of becoming a theater producer, hailed the erstwhile Kennedy Center’s name change.
“I was surprised by it. I was honored by it,” he told reporters in the Oval office.
Despite his supposed surprise, Trump had dangled the possibility of renaming the feted venue for months.
In August, for example, he remarked that “some people refer to it as the Trump-Kennedy Center, but we’re not prepared to do that quite yet.”
“Maybe in a week or so.”
Earlier this month, the president appeared to foreshadow the change in an aside during his speech on the conflict between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“There’s a big event on Friday at the Trump-Kennedy Center — excuse me, at the Kennedy Center,” he said.
Critics quickly slammed the rebrand and some expressed doubts that the board even has the authority to make the name change.
“Trump has turned the internationally acclaimed Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts into an Atlantic City lounge act for right wing demagogues,” scoffed Robert Zimmerman, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton to the Kennedy Center’s President’s Advisory Committee on the Arts.
Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) — an ex officio congressionally selected board member — denied that the vote was unanimous.
“For the record. This was not unanimous. I was muted on the call and not allowed to speak or voice my opposition to this move. Also, for the record, this was not on the agenda,” Beatty grumbled on X.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) contended the board “has no authority” to do the rebrand.
“We’re going to make that clear,” he said Thursday.
Trump largely ignored the iconic center on the Potomac River during his first term in office, as prominent cultural icons who received awards there publicly attacked him.
But shortly after being sworn into his second term, Trump shifted gears and quickly purged the board of all of former President Joe Biden’s appointees.
Trump contended that a major overhaul in leadership was necessary because of a prior decision to allow drag show performances at its prestigious venue, among other concerns, and appointed himself chairman and staunch loyalist Ric Grenell as interim executive director.
“The Kennedy Center is in tremendous disrepair, as is a lot of the rest of our country, most of it because of bad management,” Trump vented to reporters in March after personally inspecting the venerated cultural center.
“This is a shame, what I’ve watched and witnessed.”
Congress has since allocated some $250 million to renovate the sprawling complex.
Trump emceed the venue’s 48th Kennedy Center Honors ceremony earlier this month, becoming the first president in US history to do so.
