U.S. President Donald Trump reacts while speaking to members of the media on board Air Force One en route to the U.S., October 30, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
After putting his name on the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, President Donald Trump is closing it. National Review writer Jeffrey Blehar argues that Trump's stated reason of conducting repairs and maintenance is simply window dressing masking the real reason for the facility's sudden closure.
President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that he was shuttering the Kennedy Center completely during America’s Semiquincentennial year of celebration, with Blehar quipping that the president did it "for, uh, two years of retooling and refurbishing."
“Trump claimed in his post that 'I have determined that The Trump Kennedy Center, if temporarily closed for Construction, Revitalization, and Complete Rebuilding, can be, without question, the finest Performing Arts Facility of its kind, anywhere in the World,'" Blehar wrote in his article, saying he quoted Trump's full post to “convey … just how sweaty-palmed Trump looks backing and filling in this case.”
“Everybody knows the real reason the Kennedy Center — after being renamed after Donald Trump — is suddenly closing for the rest of Donald Trump’s term in office: Artists simply will not play there anymore,” said Blehar.
This is no secret, Blehar added. Shows from Hamilton to composer Philip Glass have withdrawn.
“I don’t blame Glass for the insult: Trump put his name on the building precisely because he wanted to insult Glass and all others forced to play there,” said Blehar. “… [Trump] knows exactly how much he is hated, and he is especially well-informed about who specifically hates him. He renamed the Kennedy Center after himself precisely because in his limited time left in office, he was amused by the idea of watching luminaries from the hated artistic class forced to bow and scrape and play in King Trump’s Beautiful Memorial Building.”
“It really goes no deeper than that,” said Blehar. “The original source of most of his impulses — and most of his biggest errors — is vanity and ego gratification, after all.”
Blehar said Trump’s stated claim of closing the facility due to renovations is bunk, of course, as is likely his promise of “a scheduled Grand Reopening that will rival and surpass anything that has taken place with respect to such a Facility before.”
“I’m sure that when Trump is through ‘revitalizing’ it in late 2028, it’ll be 20 feet taller and covered in fake-gold plating,” Blehar wrote. “Just in time for President Newsom’s January 2029 Grand Reopening.”