A person walks outside the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC.Rahmat Gul/AP
Donald Trump announced on Sunday night that the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts will close its doors for two years while it undergoes renovation, following artists calling off performances and ticket sales nosediving.
The cultural institution is scheduled to close on July 4, “in honor of the 250th Anniversary of our Country,” to undergo “Construction, Revitalization, and Complete Rebuilding” and become “the finest Performing Arts Facility of its kind, anywhere in the World,” the president posted on Truth Social.
But it remains unclear what renovations need to be completed. The Kennedy Center underwent a $250 million expansion in 2019.
In his announcement, the president stated that “financing is completed, and fully in place.” The One Big Beautiful Bill Act set aside $257 million for “necessary expenses for capital repair, restoration, maintenance backlog, and security structures” for the Kennedy Center—possibly, as he previously stated, to adorn the building with “24 karat gold” similar to his remodeling of the Oval Office.
Trump noted that his decision will be “totally subject to Board approval”—a Board that he took over after kicking out many Joe Biden appointees, handpicking replacements, and declaring himself chairman last February.
In December, the president renamed the Kennedy Center “The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.” As I wrote then, only Congress holds the authority to rename the building. President Lyndon Johnson in 1964 signed a law that designates the arts institution as a “living memorial” to the late President Kennedy.
Members of Kennedy’s family condemned the decision to close the cultural center. The former president’s niece, Maria Shriver, ridiculed Trump Sunday on X, writing a “translation” of his announcement: “It’s best for me to close this center down and rebuild a new center that will bear my name, which will surely get everybody to stop talking about the fact that everybody’s canceling… right?”
“He can change the name, shut the doors, and demolish the building. He can try to kill JFK,” Jack Schlossberg, Kennedy’s grandson, wrote the same night on X. “But JFK is kept alive by us now rising up to remove Donald Trump, bring him to justice, and restore the freedoms generations fought for.”
In a Monday statement, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which has jurisdiction over public buildings, and an ex-officio member of the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees, said Trump’s year-long attempt to “commandeer the Kennedy Center as a clubhouse for his friends and political allies and install leadership who will satisfy his every whim” has led to the destruction of the cultural institution.
“With his hostile takeover leading to artists’ withdrawals and declining ticket sales, he is covering up his failures by shuttering a national landmark that belongs to the American people,” Whitehouse continued.
Whitehouse launched an investigation into corruption at the Kennedy Center under Trump-appointed interim president Richard Grenell following the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee obtaining documents revealing millions of dollars in lost revenue and luxury spending. According to Whitehouse’s Monday statement, Grenell has not provided financial transparency, despite public promises to do so.
