The Kennedy Center board is forging ahead with a new plan to keep President Donald Trump's name associated with the center for the arts, per a new report from CBS News, after their previous gambit went down in flames.
After Trump installed a new board of loyalists to the venerated Washington D.C., institution, the Kennedy Center last year approved a wildly unpopular plan to add the president's own name to the building, serving as a prelude to his broader attempt to slap his name on anything he can and to remake the nation's capital in his own image. Following legal challenges to the change, the center was ultimately forced by a judge to remove Trump's name from the building, with workers doing so over the weekend behind a tarp to obscure the process from a crowd of spectators.
Not deterred by this, CBS News reported over the weekend that the Kennedy Center had approved the creation of a new endowment fund named for Trump during a meeting on Thursday. An official with the institution told CBS that the "Trump Kennedy Center Fund," as it will be known, is "a landmark commitment to securing the future of the nation's preeminent performing arts institution and its enduring legacy of artistic excellence."
"A source with knowledge of the plans for the endowment suggested it will focus on the 'physical disrepair' of the building, an element the current board feels has been neglected in the past," CBS's report detailed.
Amid the intense public backlash to the original name change, Trump announced earlier this year that the Kennedy Center would be closing down for a period of two years, starting on July 4, claiming that the building is in a state of neglect and in need of significant renovations. Performers and D.C. residents familiar with the center, however, have pushed back hard against these claims from Trump, asserting that the building remains in fine working order, with one reporter adding that it remains a "gorgeous venue," and argued that the closure is meant to distract from the wave of artist cancellations that resulted from Trump's takeover.
"Since a lot of the coverage is omitting this detail: The Kennedy Center HAD a $250 million renovation and expansion just a few years ago, in 2019," writer and reporter Julian Sanchez posted to BlueSky, later adding, "I guess this might not be obvious to folks who aren’t in DC/regular attendees, but: The [Kennedy Center] is a gorgeous venue. It is not run down, and certainly is not remotely in need of the kind of complete renovation that would require shutting it down for two years."
