President Trump Says He’s Firing Kennedy Center Board Members & Naming Himself Chairman
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Friday (Feb. 7) that he is firing members of the board of trustees for the Kennedy Center and naming himself chairman.
He also indicated that he would be dictating programming at one of the nation’s premier cultural institutions, specifically declaring that he’d put an end to events featuring performers in drag.
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Trump’s announcement came as the new president has bulldozed his way across official Washington during the first weeks of his second term, trying to shutter federal agencies, freeze spending and ending diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives across the government.
“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,” Trump wrote.
“We will soon announce a new Board, with an amazing Chairman, DONALD J. TRUMP!”
Unlike former President Joe Biden and other commanders in chief through the decades, Trump did not attend the annual Kennedy Center Honors ceremonies during his first term, held at the performing arts venue in Washington’s Foggy Bottom neighborhood that opened in 1971.
Shortly after Trump’s post, the Kennedy Center website began experiencing technical difficulties. Visitors got a message reading “We are experiencing high traffic” and were redirected to a “waiting room” that listed how many hundreds of people were trying to access the site ahead of them.
Trump suggested in his post that he would be implementing some changes to the center’s performance schedule, noting that last year “the Kennedy Center featured Drag Shows specifically targeting our youth — THIS WILL STOP.”
According to its website, the center in July hosted a preshow titled “A Drag Salute to Divas” and a November “Drag Brunch.”
In his post, Trump did not clarify which board of trustee members he would be terminating besides the current chairman, philanthropist David Rubenstein. The board often features political powerbrokers and major donors, and is currently made up of members from both sides of the aisle.
Rubenstein was first elected to the post in 2010 and reelected each year since that time. Also, the principal owner of the Baltimore Orioles, Rubenstein was originally appointed to the Kennedy Center board by President George W. Bush and subsequently reappointed by President Barack Obama and Biden.
The current board features Biden’s White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, as well as Mike Donilon, Biden’s longtime ally, and Stephanie Cutter, a former Obama adviser. The treasurer of the center’s board of trustees is television producer Shonda Rhimes, who hosted fundraisers for Biden before he abandoned his reelection bid last summer.
But the current board also features Trump allies, including Pam Bondi, the new president’s recently confirmed attorney general, and Lee Greenwood, whose song “God Bless the USA,” was the unofficial anthem of Trump’s presidential campaign.
During his first term in 2019, Trump announced that he was tapping actor Jon Voight, a longtime supporter, to the board, along with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who he’s picked as U.S. ambassador to Israel this time.
UPDATE: The Kennedy Center released a statement Friday night. It is printed in its entirety below.
Throughout our history, the Kennedy Center has enjoyed strong support from members of congress and their staffs—Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. Since our doors opened in 1971, we have had a collaborative relationship with every presidential administration. Since that time, the Kennedy Center has had a bi-partisan board of trustees that has supported the arts in a non-partisan fashion.
While we are a living memorial to President Kennedy, we are also a unique public-private partnership. The Center is supported by federal annual appropriations for the upkeep and maintenance of the building as a federal memorial, or approximately 16% of the total operating budget. Support for the Center’s artistic programming comes from ticket sales, donations, rental income, and other revenue sources.
The Kennedy Center is aware of the post made recently by POTUS on social media. We have received no official communications from the White House regarding changes to our board of trustees. We are aware that some members of our board have received termination notices from the administration.
Per the Center’s governance established by Congress in 1958, the chair of the board of trustees is appointed by the Center’s board members. 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’s board.
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