J.F.K.
President Donald Trump’s plan to close the Kennedy Center, renamed by Trump, for two years does not sit well with relatives of former President John F. Kennedy, in whose honor the Washington, D.C., performing arts venue was named.
Trump made the announcement Sunday night on his Truth Social platform, calling the existing structure “tired, broken and dilapidated.” The place, he said, will close on July 4 (the nation’s 250th anniversary) and reopen shortly before he leaves office.
Kennedy’s niece, Maria Shriver, took to social media to share her suspicions about Trump’s true motivations.
“Translation: I have been informed that due to the name change (but no one is telling me it is due to the name change), but I have been informed that artists are canceling left and right, and I have determined that since the name change no one wants to perform there anymore,” he wrote Sunday on
Kennedy’s grandson, Jack Schlossberg, currently running as a Democrat for a U.S. House seat in New York, echoed those sentiments but suggested the best way to honor JFK’s legacy was to seek retaliation for Trump’s many other transgressions.
“Trump can keep the Kennedy Center. He can change the name, close the doors and demolish the building,” he wrote on
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Former Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass.), JFK’s great-nephew, called Trump’s plan for the Kennedy Center “painful” — and a distraction.
“President Kennedy would remind us that it is not the buildings that define the greatness of a nation. It is the actions of its people and its leaders,” he wrote in
The Kennedy Center opened in 1971 as a “living memorial” to President Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963. Trump’s takeover of the venue (dubtiously renamed the Trump-Kennedy Center in December, prompting legal and legislative challenges) sent shockwaves through the performing arts community.
Last month, composer Philip Glass and soprano Renée Fleming joined a growing list of artists in canceling their scheduled performances at the traditionally nonpartisan venue amid numerous reports of dwindling donations and declining ticket sales.
Richard Grenell, whom Trump named the center’s acting executive director last February, dismissed the criticism, arguing that the president had brought “common sense” programming back to the site.
“For decades we have watched the Kennedy Center be ignored by the same people who now stand up and complain about the savior,” Grenell told News last month. “They’re complaining about the firefighter who literally came to rescue him and put out the fire.”