WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump hosted the Kennedy Center ‘s leadership at the White House on Monday night, reinforcing how much attention he’s devoting to remaking a premier cultural center as part of a larger effort to overhaul the social and ideological dynamics of the national arts scene.
The meeting of the center’s board in the State Dining Room followed Trump firing its previous members and announcing in February that he’d serve as the board’s chair. The new board, which unanimously approved Trump as its chair, is stocked with loyalists.
They include White House chief of staff Susie Wiles; Attorney General Pam Bondi; Usha Vance, the wife of Vice President JD Vance; and Lee Greenwood, whose song “God Bless the USA,” plays at Trump rallies as well as many official events, including during his trip to the Middle East last week.
Trump called it a “hot board.”
“We’re gonna turn it around,” Trump told dinner attendees of the center. He said of running the board, ”When I said, ‘I’ll do this,’ I hadn’t been there” and joked, “That’s the last time I’ll take a job without looking at it.”
Trump has called the center’s past programming “woke” and “terrible,” while more broadly seeking to slash federal funding for the arts — complaining that too much programming promotes leftist ideology and political correctness. In his view, molding the Kennedy Center to his own liking can go a long way toward creating a new arts and social culture nationwide.
The Kennedy Center announced its upcoming lineup on Monday, which includes performances of “Chicago,” “Moulin Rouge” and “Back to the Future: The Musical.” The offerings for kids includes a theatrical version of the cartoon hit “Bluey.”
The center previously abandoned a week’s worth of July events celebrating LGBTQ+ rights as part of this summer’s World Pride festival in Washington.
The White House has further moved to cancel millions in previously awarded federal humanities grants to arts and culture groups. And Trump’s budget framework has proposed eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities altogether.
Trump told the dinner that congressional Republicans have pushed for more than $250 million for repairs and maintenance at the Kennedy Center, and said that, over the past decade, “tremendous amounts of money” was spent there.
“I don’t know where they spent it,” he said. “They certainly didn’t spend it on wallpaper, carpet or painting.”
Richard Grenell, a Trump envoy for special missions who is interim head of the Kennedy Center, said a previous budget included “$26 million in phantom revenue.” He suggested the behavior could be a criminal matter for prosecutors and that Bondi, in addition to being on the center’s board, heard the details at a meeting earlier Monday.
“She heard the details, and this is unacceptable,” Grenell said.
Trump said the center would raise funds but added of the building’s state that it’s “falling apart”
He said previous “programming was out of control with rampant political propaganda” and featured “some very inappropriate shows” including a “Marxist anti-police performance” and “Lesbian-only Shakespeare.”
“Who thinks of these ideas, really?” Trump cried, drawing loud laughs from those present.
Trump also visited the Kennedy Center in March to preside over a meeting of its board, and complained then of “tremendous disrepair” to the building.
The president has decried a recent expansion of the complex, known as “The Reach,” which features studios, rehearsal spaces and meeting facilities, and has suggested he would move to close up the spaces because they lack windows. He said Monday that he’d rather see an open-air performance space on the Potomac.
The president’s changes drew pushback from a variety of artists.
The musical Hamilton responded to Trump’s hands-on approach by canceling performances it had planned in March and April. Other performers — including actress and producer Issa Rae and musician Rhiannon Giddens — have similarly scrapped planned appearances.
And with Trump planning to attend a performance of Les Miserables at the Kennedy Center on June 11, the show announced that many understudies may be performing then due to boycotts by cast members.
The Kennedy Center opened in 1971 and for decades was seen as an apolitical celebration of the arts. Presidents typically nominate members of the Kennedy Center’s board in consultation with members of Congress.
After that, they often don’t have a lot of contact with the center’s leadership, except to attend the annual Kennedy Center Honors.
“You’re one of America’s most renowned living playwrights, and you’re still writing strong,” Republican President Ronald Reagan said in 1984, addressing Author Miller, who was among that year’s Kennedy Center honorees. It was an example of a Cold War commander in chief praising a writer who had well-known associations with communist-aligned groups.
In 2019, the center hosted an exhibit of former Republican President George W. Bush’s paintings.
Trump became the first president to routinely skip attending the honors ceremony in his first term. Since returning to the White House, he’s been far more aggressive and proactive — as he has on many policy and political fronts. He cited some drag show performances at the center as a reason to transform it entirely.
“Instead of putting forward programming that tears our country down and tears our country apart,” Trump said, “the Kennedy Center should be the nation’s premier venue for lifting up the best of our country and lifting up the American arts, music and culture.”
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Associated Press writers Darlene Superville in Washington and Hillel Italie in New York contributed.
