Kennedy Center gets a makeover

Kennedy Center gets a makeover
By Terry A. Hurlbut
President Donald J. Trump, in the middle of uncovering scandalous projects in the federal bureaucracy, has found a new target. Yesterday he announced his intention to fire the chairman of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, plus several trustees. Trump will make himself chairman, appoint a new Board, and radically change the Center’s programming. By this means he will strike at the heart of the ultra-sophisticated arts and entertainment culture, with its current predilection for celebrating, promoting – and perhaps recruiting into – the Alphabet Soup movement.
Trump’s announcements about the Kennedy Center
The President made his announcement on Truth Social yesterday, at 5:27 p.m. EST:
At my direction, we are going to make the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., GREAT AGAIN. I have decided to immediately terminate multiple individuals from the Board of Trustees, including the Chairman, who do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture. We will soon announce a new Board, with an amazing Chairman, DONALD J. TRUMP! Just last year, the Kennedy Center featured Drag Shows specifically targeting our youth — THIS WILL STOP. The Kennedy Center is an American Jewel, and must reflect the brightest STARS on its stage from all across our Nation. For the Kennedy Center, THE BEST IS YET TO COME!
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/113964959500715895
More than six hours later, the President sent an image of himself appearing to conduct an orchestra at the Kennedy Center, using only his hands, as the late Philadelphia Orchestra conductor, Leopold Stokowski, once did. He captioned it:
Welcome to the New Kennedy Center!
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/113966421487800920
According to The Times of India, the Kennedy Center had received no official notice from the White House as of 5:35 a.m. EST today. In an official statement, the Center’s communications office said,
There is nothing in the Center’s statute that would prevent a new administration from replacing board members; however, this would be the first time such action has been taken with the Kennedy Center board.
The Kennedy Center has a thirty-six-member board, whose members received their appointments from Trump (first term) and President Joe Biden. According to The New York Times, at least one board member, a Biden appointee, already has received a termination notice. But other board members said they had heard nothing. Board members normally serve for six years, and the Times seemed to suggest that Trump was “test[ing] the legal limits” of his authority to fire them.
David Rubenstein, the current chairman (whom George W. Bush first appointed), had planned to retire by January 2025. But when Trump won reelection, he had planned to remain as Chairman until September 2026. Why he so chose, no one will say or even speculate. Now, apparently, this will not happen.
Competing visions for arts and culture
According to the Times and The Washington Post, President Biden made a flurry of appointments to the Kennedy Center Board. He made these immediately before leaving office and didn’t announce them publicly. These appointees included former Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, former Cabinet secretary Even Ryan, and political strategist Mike Donilon. Whether these were among those Trump fired, no one has said. The Board also has some holdovers from Trump’s first term, including Pam Bondi (now Attorney General) and Elaine Chao (Trumps former SecTrans).
The Times of India did check with the Associated Press on Trump’s claim about drag shows. They had consulted the Center’s web site. In fact, an on-site search on the phrase “drag Kennedy Center” features several drag shows. The Times of India mentioned only two of them: “A Drag Salute to Divas” on June 14, 2024, and the “Broadway Drag Brunch” on November 10, 2024. But they also hosted a “Dancing Queens Drag Brunch” on October 20, and “BERTHA: Grateful Drag” on December 4. This last was part of their “Social Impact” series of programs, which they advertise thus:
At the Kennedy Center, our systemic commitment to social impact lives in our belief that the arts hold unique power in our society to build community, center joy, inspire action, and drive meaningful change. We leverage the arts for non-arts outcomes to advance justice and equity in all that we do.
The Center also hosts a Social Impact Report, the content of which suggests that Social Impact has existed since 2021.
Trump’s prior history with the Kennedy Center
Aside from such changes under the Biden administration, several honorees at the Kennedy Center Honors show criticized Trump in his first year. In fact, Norman Lear (All in the Family, Maude, Sanford and Son, etc.) said he would refuse to attend any White House reception for honorees, so long as Trump hosted it. Dancer Carmen de Lavallade said the same. Very well, said Trump in August 2017, so I won’t have any White House receptions. Nor did Trump ever attend the Kennedy Center Honors during his first term. Kristinn Taylor of The Gateway Pundit reported then that the 2017 Honors show saw its lowest ratings in thirty years.
The honorees, including singer Gloria Estefan, crowed, “Good riddance!” But other Twitter (now X) users, responding to the Center’s post of a photo of a President-less President’s Box, heaped scorn on the Center. Of eight replies, only one was sympathetic to the Center; the rest scorned the Center, the honorees, or both. One of these shared the sad ratings statistics from Deadline:
CBS’ broadcast of Kennedy Center Honors clocked its lowest ratings result in people-meter history, dating back to 1987. The Tuesday 9-11 PM broadcast fumbled 28% of last year’s 8.620 million total viewers, to 6.169 million. The demo dive: 30% from last year’s 1.0 rating to 0.7.
https://x.com/TheOxyCon/status/946245018918014976
Deadline noted that this was the 40th anniversary of Kennedy Center Honors, and the 100th birthday of President John F. Kennedy, the Center’s namesake.
History during coronavirus and under the Biden administration
After the 2017 debacle, people paid the Kennedy Center no attention – until the coronavirus pandemic. The Center closed to the public on March 12, 2020. Congress passed the CARES Act to provide relief for those not allowed to work during the declared pandemic state. The Kennedy Center, which oversees the National Symphony Orchestra, got a $25 million package. Yet they still told musicians that their last paycheck would come on April 3, and they would not receive another until the Center reopened.
Two days later, Human Events’ Jack Posobiec found a recording of a telephone conversation including Deborah Rutter, the Center’s President. Ms. Rutter admitted that the Center had sent a lobbyist to get that $25 million – with no intention of using the money to meet payroll. She also admitted that the Center had “been barely keeping their heads afloat for years.” Apparently the Center does receive an annual appropriation – strictly for building maintenance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnrXEJm39RE
But the Center did reopen, and held their Honors show in December 2021. President Biden hosted the White House reception – now reinstated – and showed up, without a mask, though he had a cold. (Or was it coronavirus? No one has ever said.). The next year, First Lady Jill wore a black dress with roses and carnations on it, that looked more like a sofa throw.
Countdown to Trump
The 2022 Honors show was notable for the appearance of Paul Pelosi, his first after someone attacked him in the Pelosi home in San Francisco. At the 2023 show, Biden gave a presentation speech, then got lost on stage, until Dr. Jill guided him off.
But the 2023 show drew shade for another reason. Why, asked The Gateway Pundit, should Washington’s elite throw such a posh party while the people suffer from inflation (which produced a condition close to famine), crime, and homelessness? Jim Hoft, with his headline, suggested the whole thing reminded him of Suzanne Collins’ young-adult trilogy, The Hunger Games. In 2024, Christina Laila noted that President and Mrs. Biden pointedly did Not Speak to Vice-President Kamala Harris and her husband.
Herewith the rosters for the last eight years:
• 2017: Norman Lear, Carmen de Lavallade, Gloria Estefan, LL Cool J, and Lionel Ritchie.
• 2018: Cher, Philip Glass, Reba McEntire, and Wayne Shorter.
• 2019: Earth Wind and Fire, Sally Field, Linda Ronstadt, the producers of Sesame Street, and Michael Tilson Thomas.
• 2020: Debbie Allen, Joan Baez, Garth Brooks, Midori, and Dick Van Dyke.
• 2021: Justino Díaz, Berry Gordy, Lorne Michaels, Bette Midler, and Joni Mitchell.
• 2022: George Clooney, Amy Grant, Tania Leon, Gladys Knight, and the band U2.
• 2023: Billy Crystal, Renée Fleming, Barry Gibb, Queen Latifah, and Dionne Warwick.
The 2024 roster was slightly better: Francis Ford Coppola, The Grateful Dead, Bonnie Raitt, Arturo Sandoval – and the Apollo Theater.
What might Trump do with the Kennedy Center?
Obviously no President has replaced several members of the Kennedy Center board before. But no President has stacked the Board with his cronies before, as Joe Biden did in his last weeks. So that’s merely one more thing Biden did that Trump felt the need to reverse. And small wonder! This Board, aside from Biden’s last-minute additions, gave us Drag Salutes to Divas and Drag Brunches. One of those events happened less than a week after the election. Talk about getting into the face of the American electorate! Let no one at the Center or elsewhere talk about “bipartisanship” after such a disrespectful event schedule.
Trump did give a clue to his possible intentions shortly before his Inauguration. He appointed three “Special Ambassadors to Hollywood”: Sylvester Stallone, Mel Gibson and Jon Voight.
It is my honor to announce Jon Voight, Mel Gibson, and Sylvester Stallone, to be Special Ambassadors to a great but very troubled place, Hollywood, California. They will serve as Special Envoys to me for the purpose of bringing Hollywood, which has lost much business over the last four years to Foreign Countries, BACK—BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE! These three very talented people will be my eyes and ears, and I will get done what they suggest. It will again be, like The United States of America itself, The Golden Age of Hollywood!
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/113839243472952784
Logically, these would be the sort of artist Donald Trump would wish to honor.
Trump’s dispute with the Kennedy Center Board stems from their differences on what art, and especially inspiring art, is. And isn’t. A Board that promotes the Alphabet Soup lifestyle, and heaps scorn on its audience for rejecting such art, deserves replacement. Trump seeks to honor and promote art that inspires, not art that tempts to empty self-indulgence.
Hollywood did have a Golden Age – in the days of the Hays Office. Trump wants that kind of Golden Age again. He also would like the Kennedy Center to honor performing art that has inspired humanity for centuries.
Link to:
The article:
https://cnav.news/2025/02/08/editorial/talk/kennedy-center-gets-makeover/

Trump’s Truths about the Kennedy Center:
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/113964959500715895
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/113966421487800920

Kennedy Center home, statement, etc.:
https://www.kennedy-center.org/
https://www.kennedy-center.org/kennedy-center-statement/
https://www.kennedy-center.org/social-impact/
https://cas.zma.gs/616d79dcad04231fbc964042/ssr/preview/2be1be13-7d8b-80f3-8005-2af19672af0e/embed.html

Post about the Honors show’s low ratings:
https://x.com/TheOxyCon/status/946245018918014976

Video: leaked phone call about the $25 million:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnrXEJm39RE

The Hunger Games:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/12/hunger-games-dc-elites-gather-kennedy-center-cheer/
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/12/they-hate-her-joe-jill-biden-light-up/

Ambassadors to Hollywood:
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/113839243472952784

Declarations of Truth:
https://x.com/DecTruth

Declarations of Truth Locals Community:
https://declarationsoftruth.locals.com/

Conservative News and Views:
https://cnav.news/

Clixnet Media
https://clixnet.com/