Trump to Kennedy Center board ahead of vote on 2-year shutdown: ‘You have to close it’

Ahead of a key vote, President Trump is urging his handpicked board of trustees for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to move ahead with his controversial plan to temporarily shutter the institution for renovations, saying, “You have to close it.” 

“I think everybody agrees, but subject to board approval, we determined that the fastest way to bring the Trump-Kennedy Center to the highest level of beauty and grandeur is to cease the entertainment operations for a two-year period of time as we complete really high quality construction,” Trump said on Monday as he kicked off a Kennedy Center board meeting in the White House’s East Room.

“The best way to do it is close it — do it properly, and reopen and have a grand reopening,” Trump said.

“And when it’s finished, it’s going to be far better than it was when it was originally built,” the president said as some of the Kennedy Center board’s members, including Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Attorney General Pam Bondi, looked on. 

“Over the past year, we’ve made incredible strides to restore the true purpose and prestige of this revered institution,” Trump said, calling the facility, which opened in 1971, “somewhat a disaster” before his involvement. 

He detailed updates to the air conditioning system and seating along with the installation of new marble.

The board gathering came days after a federal judge issued a ruling as part of a lawsuit brought by Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) aimed at barring Trump from blocking the temporary closure of the Kennedy Center.

The Saturday ruling from U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper said that Beatty, an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center’s board, must be given a “meaningful opportunity” to participate in Monday’s meeting but was not required to be allowed to vote.

The meeting also followed a recent shakeup in the leadership at the Kennedy Center, with Trump announcing the departure of Ric Grenell as the institution’s CEO and executive director. 

In an unprecedented move last year shortly after the beginning of his second term in office, Trump announced he was ending the terms of multiple members of the Kennedy Center’s board. After accusing the arts hub and its programming of being too “woke,” he installed allies and named himself its chairman.

“When we first took it over, I didn’t do it with enthusiasm,” he said during his remarks on Monday. “I did it because somebody had to do it — had to turn it around because it was failing.”

Several artists cut ties and canceled their scheduled performances at the Kennedy Center in protest of the president. Ticket sales reportedly plunged in the months after Trump took control of the board. 

In November, the new board voted to rename the building the “Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”

Trump — who had hosted several high-profile events in the space in the last year, including the annual Kennedy Center Honors and the premiere of first lady Melania Trump’s “Melania” documentary — revealed in February that the Kennedy Center would close for a two-year massive renovation beginning in July.

The “complete reconstruction,” which Trump noted at the time was subject to board approval, would create a “new and spectacular entertainment complex” in the nation’s capital.

“THE TRUMP KENNEDY CENTER will be, at its completion, the finest facility of its kind anywhere in the World!” he in a social media post earlier this month, sharing renderings of the “highly improved” building.

“What I do best in life is build,” Trump said Monday at the White House.

“Together, we’re going to ensure it remains the finest performing arts facility of its kind anywhere in the world — and I don’t know that it ever really reached that stage,” he said, “but it will over a period of time.”

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