WASHINGTON — President Trump was pictured Wednesday night looking over shocking plans to level the iconic Kennedy Center for the Arts — shortly after telling reporters the building could be “ripped down” if he didn’t receive “recognition” for attempting to renovate the facility.
A photographer snapped Trump, seated aboard Air Force One following an event in North Carolina, inspecting a large printed poster board bearing the center’s name and the word “Demolish” above images of construction equipment within a shell of the vast building.
The president was with Bill Pulte, the chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who is known for pitching Trump on ambitious ideas using visual displays.
Trump demolished the White House’s East Wing over three days this past October without advance public notice to make way for a new ballroom project.
Although the Kennedy Center is known to contain asbestos, fencing already has gone up around the building and willow trees surrounding it were recently cut down.
About four hours before Trump was snapped reviewing the plans, he had raged against a federal judge for siding with Democrats in again blocking his name from appearing on the center following renovations.
“I think that the Trump administration should certainly have recognition because, frankly, if we don’t do that, it’s going to close. It’ll end up being ripped down,” Trump said as he arrived in Charlotte.
“It’s in very, very bad shape, very dangerous shape. You see steel falling down. You see plaster falling off ceilings. You see a lot of dangers. It’s been very badly maintained for 25 years.”
The center’s mostly Trump-appointed board voted Tuesday to close the main building after plaster fell from the ceiling of the cavernous grand foyer following a heavy rainstorm in the nation’s capital.
A member of the legal team opposing Trump’s Kennedy Center efforts, Bridget Kennedy-Bailey, swore in a court filing Wednesday that she saw a forklift “run into and hit the pillars on the building several times.”
In response, the center’s acting president and executive director, Matt Floca, confirmed that he had ordered the building to be closed for at least seven days beginning Wednesday due to “acute risks to public safety resulting from continued structural deterioration.”
At Trump’s request, Congress approved $257 million last year to refresh the facility, and the president began making site visits and reviewing marble samples. Progress stalled over a fight over adding Trump’s name to the center alongside that of the late President John F. Kennedy.
The board voted last December to rebrand as the Trump-Kennedy Center in recognition of the incumbent leader’s interest in improving the site, though the idea and associated signage on the facade was nixed by US District Judge Christopher Cooper.
Cooper on Tuesday rejected a subsequent proposal to rename the area around the center “Trump Plaza” and add the words “Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump” to the building.
“Simply put, Defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’s blessing,” wrote the appointee of former President Barack Obama.
The center opened its doors in 1971, having been renamed after the assassinated 35th president by an act of Congress in 1964.
