{"id":451909,"date":"2026-02-06T05:22:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T05:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/451909\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T05:22:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T05:22:09","slug":"why-megalomaniac-trump-is-destroying-the-kennedy-center-michael-wolff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/451909\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Megalomaniac Trump Is Destroying the Kennedy Center: Michael Wolff"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump\u2019s inner circle had to talk him down from an even more egregious rebranding of the Kennedy Center, according to his biographer. <\/p>\n

Trump, 79, has devoted much of his presidency to remaking the storied cultural institution in his own image, hijacking its board<\/a>, renaming it<\/a> \u201cThe Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts\u201d without congressional approval, and moving to shutter it<\/a> for destructive<\/a> \u201crenovations.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the president\u2019s egomaniacal quest may have escalated further had his advisers not intervened to curb his narcissistic impulses, author Michael Wolff shared on the Inside Trump\u2019s Head<\/a> podcast. <\/p>\n

\"WASHINGTON,President Donald Trump argued that the Kennedy Center should be renamed the “Trump Center” because he was almost assassinated, according to Michael Wolff. Alex Wong\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

\u201cHis first idea was to call this the Trump Center,\u201d Wolff told co-host Joanna Coles. <\/p>\n

According to the author, who regularly speaks to people in the White House, Trump asked, \u201cWhy does this have to be Kennedy? That was such a long time ago.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Trump followed up with a jaw-dropping justification for grafting his name on the institution, which was named for President John F. Kennedy two months after his 1963 assassination. <\/p>\n

\"10\/7\/1960-Two months after Kennedy\u2019s assassination, former President Lyndon B. Johnson passed a measure renaming the center \u201cThe John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.\u201d Bettmann Archive\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

\u201cI was almost assassinated. Therefore, it should be me,\u201d said Trump, who was targeted in two assassination attempts in 2024, according to Wolff. <\/p>\n

Despite the absurdity of his demands, the president\u2019s delicate ego kept his inner circle from killing the idea entirely, Wolff said. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t say, \u2018This is a terrible idea. This is a megalomaniacal idea. This is not good politics.\u2019 You just cannot say any of that stuff to Trump,\u201d Wolff told Coles. \u201cSo instead, they said, \u2018Well, why don\u2019t we call it the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Center?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JohnThe renaming drew immediate backlash from artists, Democrats, and the Kennedy family. Anadolu\/Celal Gunes\/Anadolu via Getty Images <\/p>\n

The author, whom Trump threatened to sue this week<\/a>, added, \u201cIt\u2019s a perfect Trump setup. He goes for the absurd, and he settles for the outlandish.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Dec. 18, Trump\u2019s handpicked board voted to rename the center. The president incredulously claimed he was \u201csurprised\u201d<\/a> by the board\u2019s vote. <\/p>\n

While any formal change requires congressional action, the center slapped Trump\u2019s name on its signage one day later and updated its website to read \u201cThe Trump Kennedy Center.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

When reached for comment, Trump\u2019s communications director Steven Cheung provided the Daily Beast with a recycled statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cMichael Wolff is a lying sack of s— and has been proven to be a fraud,\u201d Cheung said. \u201cHe routinely fabricates stories originating from his sick and warped imagination, only possible because he has a severe and debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted his peanut-sized brain.\u201d<\/p>\n

The renaming drew immediate backlash from artists, Democrats, and the Kennedy family<\/a>. <\/p>\n

JFK\u2019s niece, Maria Shriver, wrote on X, \u201cAdding your name to a memorial already named in honor of a great man doesn\u2019t make you a great man. Quite the contrary.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Trump may not be grasping Shriver\u2019s thoughts on humility, JFK certainly did, according to a recently unearthed letter from his wife, Jackie Kennedy. <\/p>\n

\"GettyAn October 1964 letter penned by Jackie Kennedy to the center\u2019s chairman, Roger Stevens, detailed her apprehensions about naming the Washington, D.C. institution after her husband, who was assassinated the year before. Getty Images and JFK Library and Museum <\/p>\n

In an October 1964 letter<\/a>, penned by Jackie to the center\u2019s then-chairman, Roger Stevens, the former first lady suggested her husband would not have wanted the center named after him. She also expressed fear that the Kennedy Center would \u201cfall into the realm of political patronage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wolff noted that for decades the center avoided becoming a \u201cpolitical football,\u201d instead standing as a bipartisan cultural institution and an iconic fixture of Washington life.<\/p>\n

None of Jackie\u2019s fears came to pass\u2014\u201cuntil now,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Trump announced Sunday that he would close the center for roughly two years for extensive renovations, later revealing the project would cost $200 million and hinting he would gut the building\u2019s existing marble design.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not ripping it down,\u201d he insisted, before adding, \u201cWe\u2019ll be using the steel, so we\u2019re using the structure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"turhtTrump said he would shutter the Kennedy Center for roughly two years. Donald Trump\/Truth Social \"truthThe president called the center \u201ctired, broken, and dilapidated.\u201d
\n Donald Trump\/Truth Social <\/p>\n

The Daily Beast has reached out to the Kennedy Center for comment.<\/p>\n

Find and subscribe to Inside Trump\u2019s Head with Michael Wolff and Joanna Coles on YouTube<\/a> and wherever you get your podcasts<\/a>. New episodes of incomparable insight into the psyche of the world\u2019s most talked-about man drop every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday evening on YouTube<\/a> and Wednesday and Friday mornings on other podcast platforms<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump\u2019s inner circle had to talk him down from an even more egregious rebranding of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[1072,88,63802,28030,51879,211853],"class_list":{"0":"post-451909","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-donald-j-trump","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-joanna-coles","11":"tag-john-f-kennedy","12":"tag-kennedy-center","13":"tag-michael-wolff"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}