{"id":329983,"date":"2025-12-07T08:52:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T08:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/329983\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T08:52:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T08:52:12","slug":"kennedy-center-how-trump-transformed-the-famed-arts-institution-in-his-image","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/329983\/","title":{"rendered":"Kennedy Center: How Trump transformed the famed arts institution in his image"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n President Donald Trump<\/a> doesn\u2019t have his name on the Kennedy Center yet, but he\u2019s already shaped it to his tastes.\n <\/p>\n

\n Just days after participating in the FIFA World Cup draw onstage \u2014 and accepting the first-ever FIFA Peace Prize<\/a> \u2014 Trump is expected to host the Kennedy Center Honors<\/a>, bestowing awards upon Sylvester Stallone, the rock band KISS and Gloria Gaynor, among others.\n <\/p>\n

\n Later this month, he\u2019s assembling the center\u2019s board of trustees, which he chairs, in Palm Beach, Florida \u2014 nearly 1,000 miles away from the institution\u2019s home in Washington, DC \u2014 for a \u201cfull schedule of events,\u201d according to an invitation obtained by CNN.\n <\/p>\n

\n The December 18 off-site meeting and Trump-centric events underscore how the president has sought to put his mark on the country\u2019s most prominent cultural institution: reshaping its leadership, securing multimillion-dollar congressional funding for renovations, and reimagining its programming. The moves have led to profound internal upheaval and drawn scrutiny from Democratic lawmakers, members of the arts community and former Kennedy Center staffers.\n <\/p>\n

\n Those changes \u2014 both thematic and cosmetic \u2014 also reflect Trump\u2019s broader efforts to remake Washington, DC<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n Board meetings, one attendee says, now mirror Trump Cabinet meetings, with members going around the room to \u201ctalk about how great and visionary the president is and how he has so much class and taste.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"President<\/p>\n

\n Trump\u2019s takeover of the Kennedy Center started early. Days after returning to office, he announced an aggressive plan<\/a> to gut the existing board of trustees and oust its chairman, the billionaire philanthropist David Rubenstein.\n <\/p>\n

\n He installed a who\u2019s who of loyalists \u2014 including new president Richard Grenell, his ambassador to Germany during his first term, who\u2019s been reevaluating programming and targeting it \u201cfor the masses.\u201d Grenell has cut the existing staff, hired political allies and mandated a \u201cbreak-even policy\u201d for every performance and facility rental.\n <\/p>\n

\n And as Trump imposes his aesthetic taste on Washington, DC, the Kennedy Center has been no exception. His \u201cOne Big, Beautiful Bill\u201d included<\/a> $257 million for \u201cnecessary expenses for capital repair, restoration, maintenance backlog, and security structures.\u201d Trump has touted restoration of the exterior marble, the interior chairs and \u201cfully\u201d renovated stages, which he says<\/a> will be complete within a year.\n <\/p>\n

\n The changes extend to what\u2019s onstage too, as the president has sought to enact a \u201cVision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture,\u201d saying the \u201cTrump Kennedy Center\u201d \u2014 as he\u2019s repeatedly called it \u2014 is \u201cnot going to be woke.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"President<\/p>\n

\n The culmination is this weekend\u2019s Kennedy Center Honors \u2014 an event Trump skipped during his first term.\n <\/p>\n

\n The president, who unveiled this year\u2019s honorees in August, said he was \u201c98% involved\u201d in picking the awardees, who would typically be determined through an artist committee, board recommendations and solicitation of the public, according to one former employee.\n <\/p>\n

\n Like previous years, the honorees will be celebrated with segments featuring special guests and will receive medallions \u2014 although the awards have been redesigned to remove their signature rainbow ribbon.\n <\/p>\n

\n The president\u2019s actual hosting duties could be more limited during the event, which is set to tape on Sunday and broadcast later this month on CBS, according to a source familiar with the matter. Paramount, CBS\u2019 parent company, did not respond to CNN\u2019s request for comment, but a White House official said Trump is indeed playing a leading role.\n <\/p>\n

\n While Trump awarded the latest class of Kennedy Center honorees with their prizes Saturday evening in an Oval Office ceremony, he reflected on his administration\u2019s changes to the arts institution. \u201cAs you know, the building is being renovated. \u2026 We\u2019re going to make it something really special,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n

\n The president\u2019s changes haven\u2019t sat well with former employees, who have described political pressure and a fundamental shift in values under the Trump administration \u2014 all of which they claim are also hurting its finances.\n <\/p>\n

\n This holiday season, lagging ticket sales have impacted \u201cThe Nutcracker,\u201d historically one of the center\u2019s most popular events. Approximately 10,000 seats were sold for this year\u2019s production across seven performances, compared with around 15,000 seats each in the 2021 through 2024 performances, according to internal sales data reviewed by CNN.\n <\/p>\n

\n The Kennedy Center comped approximately five times more tickets for the performances this year than in the past four years, the data showed. And this year\u2019s show has fallen about half a million dollars short of its $1.5 million budgeted revenue goal.\n <\/p>\n

\n A Kennedy Center source granted anonymity to speak freely dismissed concerns about those sales. \u201cSelling every ticket to \u2018The Nutcracker\u2019 is absolutely not paying your bills. We have 19 unions here. The production costs are huge,\u201d the source told CNN, adding that a sponsor would be required under the new break-even model to make up the difference.\n <\/p>\n

\n But there have been deeper concerns about lost revenue, as both artists and audiences flee for other venues. Artists<\/a> including Issa Rae, Ren\u00e9e Fleming, Shonda Rhimes and Ben Folds resigned from their leadership roles or canceled events at the space. And Jeffrey Seller, producer of the hit musical \u201cHamilton,\u201d canceled<\/a> the show\u2019s planned run earlier this year.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cOne of the financial lifelines of the center is Broadway,\u201d said one former employee. \u201cBroadway tours are looking at where they should be playing, and in many cases, they are choosing not the Kennedy Center.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The Kennedy Center source pointed to a recent New York Times report<\/a> on lagging Broadway profitability writ large. Most of the productions that have canceled, the source said, were unable or unwilling to seek a corporate sponsor to make up the difference in profitability.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe people who are canceling were usually about finances \u2014 because they wanted us to pay the bill \u2014 or they were super partisan left wing,\u201d they said.\n <\/p>\n

\"President<\/p>\n

\n The center is also facing scrutiny from Democrats in Congress, which funds the facilities. Revenue comes from a combination of ticket sales, rentals and auxiliary services like food and beverage and parking, while donors make up the rest, according to the source familiar with the matter.\n <\/p>\n

\n Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, the ranking Democrat on the Committee on Environment and Public Works, has launched<\/a> an investigation into the management of the center, alleging that it\u2019s \u201cbeing used as a slush fund and private club for Trump\u2019s friends and political allies.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The White House has defended Trump\u2019s stewardship, with spokesperson Liz Huston saying the president is \u201crestoring the Kennedy Center as the crown jewel of arts and culture in our nation\u2019s capital.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n And Kennedy Center spokesperson Roma Daravi touted the team\u2019s fundraising, particularly among corporate donors. She told CNN it has pulled in $131 million on Grenell\u2019s watch after decimating the existing development team.\n <\/p>\n

\n Under Grenell\u2019s tenure, the Kennedy Center has hosted events for the American Conservative Union Foundation, the premiere of a Christian Broadcasting Network-produced film, \u201cThe Revival Generation,\u201d and a memorial for the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk. And although Grenell has repeatedly said he\u2019s working to transform the Kennedy Center into a place where \u201ceveryone is welcome,\u201d former employees say that hasn\u2019t been the case.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThey would ask us specifically if any of the artists were trans. They never explicitly said, \u2018Don\u2019t do that,\u2019 but they would make the conditions impossible for trans artists and gay artists to safely come,\u201d said Marc Bamuthi Joseph, the former head of the Kennedy Center\u2019s social impact team who was dismissed after Trump took office.\n <\/p>\n

\n The effect was immediate. \u201cIn those first months, there were a lot of artists who decided just not to come,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n

\n One of the most significant losses, he noted, came when Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, a decadeslong Kennedy Center staple, refused to return.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cNot only do you lose America\u2019s most prestigious long-running dance company, but you also lose those audiences. You\u2019re literally taking the culture out of the place,\u201d Joseph said.\n <\/p>\n

\n Asked for comment, Grenell called Joseph \u201cfar-left.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"FIFA<\/p>\n

\n The FIFA World Cup draw on Friday displaced previously scheduled arts programming, including the resident National Symphony Orchestra and a production of Gustav Mahler\u2019s \u201cSymphony No. 6.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Its estimated cost to the Kennedy Center was more than $5 million, according to an internal document obtained and published by Whitehouse. The Kennedy Center source said the center \u201cmade so much money off FIFA,\u201d telling CNN it drew $7.4 million, plus expenses, but did make a breakdown or documentation available.\n <\/p>\n

\n Still, in conversations with CNN, multiple arts advocates raised concerns about Grenell\u2019s insistence that all programming break even, noting that the Kennedy Center is a nonprofit entity.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThey want to run a nonprofit arts organization like it\u2019s a for-profit arts organization,\u201d the source familiar said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cBut the whole reason why nonprofit arts organizations exist is to keep art going that isn\u2019t profitable. If you told an opera company to exist on its own because it\u2019s going to make money, there would be no opera.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n This story has been updated with additional details.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump doesn\u2019t have his name on the Kennedy Center yet, but he\u2019s already shaped it to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,341],"class_list":{"0":"post-329983","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}