U.S. President Donald Trump on board Air Force One, January 31, 2026.
President Donald Trump argues that his name should be on the Kennedy Center because it is his administration that is trying to renovate it — despite the fact that the building itself is a memorial to an entirely different president.
But Zeteo reports recent tax records reveal the non-profit’s revenue took a steep nosedive precisely when Trump entered the White House roughly two years ago.
Trump likes to claim the center is “a mess,” and that “for many years [it] has lost tens of millions of dollars, even hundreds of millions of dollars. It’s a loser financially.” He further argues that “for me to go and fix it, I’m the one capable of fixing it and then have to subsidize it for years to come, because you will lose with the Kennedy Center, they were losing hundreds of millions of dollars and sometimes hundreds of billions, this is before I got involved.”
So Zeteo said it asked the Kennedy Center for its 2025 tax return, which was filed just last month. And what the numbers show, according to Zeteo, is that Trump “is both lying about previous losses and hiding his own deliberate financial assault.”
“The tax return does not show the Kennedy Center perpetually losing ‘hundreds of millions’ or ‘sometimes hundreds of billions.’ But it confirms issues, particularly around Trump’s takeover,” said Zeteo reporters Martin Pengelly and Andrew Perez. “… As of Sept. 30, 2025, the Kennedy Center had record net assets of $778 million. The center reported $517 million in revenue last year, and $210 million in revenue less expenses.”
However, the facility listed $48 million in “bad debt expense” in its return.
“Program revenue declined by $16 million and pledges and grants declined by $30 million in the seven or so months after Trump began his Kennedy Center takeover,” reports Zeteo. “That was before he added his name to the building, a move that reportedly caused ticket sales and donations to plunge much further.”
"The Kennedy Center made a $40 million profit in 2024. Then he demanded his name on the building, replaced the board and management with his lackeys and it's bankrupt," posted former Fox sports host Robert Lusetich on X. "The same things happen to everything he touches."
After Trump’s unhelpful intervention, the facility’s budget would have been in the red without untapped Congressional appropriations of $257 million as part of Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill.
“Interestingly, the tax return says that as of Sept. 30, 2025, roughly $330 million in federal appropriations – $310 million allotted for capital repair and restoration, and $20 million for operations and management – were being ‘held by [the] U.S. Treasury,’” Zeteo added.
But unquestionably, Zeteo reports the numbers prove Trump’s claims that the center’s finances being in a perilous state may now be accurate – but only because Trump reentered the White House for a second time.
Zeteo said it reached out to the White House and Treasury Department for financial details about the Center’s tax return, “oddly enough, the administration didn’t answer,.”
In the meantime, Trump has repeated his threat that if he can’t put his name on Kennedy’s memorial, it might have to be “ripped down,” in his own words.
“Then, that night, in a moment so Trumpian as to be almost perfectly absurd, the president was photographed on Air Force One, looking at a poster board headlined ‘Kennedy Center DEMOLISHED,’” Zeteo reported. “Next to Trump was Bill Pulte, the loyal attack dog Trump temporarily installed as director of national intelligence.”