Will the Kennedy Center become the Donald J. Trump Center for the Performing Arts?
A new bill recently introduced in Congress is called the “Make Entertainment Great Again Act,” but it focuses narrowly on one particular venue: the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.
Presented by Republican Rep. Bob Onder of Missouri on July 23, the bill would rename the modernist, cream-colored building the Donald J. Trump Center for the Performing Arts. A national symbol of the arts, the Kennedy Center has hosted thousands of performances on its seven stages since it opened in 1971. Renaming the venue after President Trump has been under discussion since February, when the president took over the organization’s board of trustees.
“Since he was elected as chairman of the Kennedy Center’s board of trustees, President Trump has been working to preserve the integrity [of] the fine arts by ending woke programming and rebalancing the Kennedy Center’s $234 million budget, which had normalized operating in the red,” Onder’s office wrote in a statement.
“You would be hard pressed to find a more significant cultural icon in the past 40 years than President Trump,” the congressman is quoted as saying. “President Trump’s love and mastery of entertainment has stood the test of time and allowed him to capture Americans’ attention for decades.”
The Kennedy Center has not yet responded to a request for comment.
Claims about how the Kennedy Center’s budget was handled have been disputed by its former president Deborah Rutter, who released a statement in May that said in part, “I am deeply troubled by the false allegations regarding the management of the Kennedy Center being made by people without the context or expertise to understand the complexities involved in nonprofit and arts management.”
Republicans recently voted, as part of the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” to dedicate $257 million towards improving the Kennedy Center, but to withhold significant funds unless the building’s opera house is re-named after first lady Melania Trump.
On social media, John F. Kennedy’s grandson Jack Scholossberg responded angrily to moves to rename the institution, posting: “The Trump Administration stands for freedom of oppression, not expression. He uses his awesome powers to suppress free expression and instill fear. But this isn’t about the arts. Trump is obsessed with being bigger than JFK , with minimizing the many heroes of our past, as if that elevates him. It doesn’t. But there’s hope — art lasts forever, and no one can change what JFK and our shared history stands for.”
Ultimately, renaming the Kennedy Center after President Trump – or its opera house after his wife – may run afoul of the laws that created it. The organization’s guidelines specify that, after December 1983, “no additional memorials or plaques shall be designated or installed.” And the Make Entertainment Great Again Act is expected to struggle to find enough votes in Congress to pass.
Edited by Jennifer Vanasco
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