Transcript
Speaker: da did da da da Welcome to Fix A Today Breaking News. I'm trying really hard not to sound like Nancy Grace when I do that, but we are here today. Well, I am here today with Breaking Kennedy News, if you can believe it. Welcome to our bonus episode. i am Nikki. I have ADHD. Joy is autistic. And I am letting my hyperfixation fly, our hyperfixation fly together, but separate, whatever.
Speaker: We are still fixating on the Kennedy curse, but so much is going on with the Kennedy Center right now. We thought it'd be a good idea for me to hop on and record a quick bonus episode about all of the shenanigans going on.
Speaker: So I had written a whole thing about the history of the Kennedy Center, but I was saving it for down the line. It was going to end up in our Robert F. Kennedy Jr. episodes because ah so much had already happened relating to the Kennedy Center under the Trump administration.
Speaker: But this past week and weekend was a little bananas-like. with all things Kennedy Center. So we, Joy and I talked about maybe just bumping up the information about the Kennedy Center, and then we can get into everything that's been going on the past week or so.
Speaker: So let's get into it. The sources for this bonus episode are ABC News, CNN, NPR, AP News, The Guardian, Hands Off the Arts, and Yahoo News, and Wikipedia.
Speaker: Let's talk about the history of the Kennedy Center. The John F. Kennedy Center is a cultural center on the eastern bank of the Potomac River in Washington, D.C.
Speaker: It hosts all types and genres of performance art. Classical music, opera, musicals, plays, jazz concerts, just anything you can think of the Kennedy Center hosts.
Speaker: The center was originally authorized by the National Cultural Center Act of 1958, which required its programming to be sustained through private funds. And that act and the subsequent center that was created represents this like unique public-private partnership.
Speaker: Ticket sales from the Kennedy Center fund education and outreach initiatives, which but the federal funds that it gets every year go to operations and building maintenance.
Speaker: The original building was designed by Edward Durrell Stone, and an extension was opened in 2019, was designed by Stephen Hall.
Speaker: George London was the first executive director in 1968, and
Speaker: Lawrence Wilker became the first president of the center in 1991, and Deborah Rutter became the third either executive director or president, but the first woman to hold the title in 2014, and she held the position until 2025.
Speaker: First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt had actually first brought the idea up of a national cultural center in 1933. She spoke with the Emergency Relief and Civil Works Administration to find ways to help American artists and thespians during the Great Depression.
Speaker: This did not materialize at first after many different congressional hearings. In 1950, U.S. Representative Arthur George Klein of New York introduced a bill to allow the funding to build a cultural center, including a provision that would not allow discrimination of any cast or audience member.
Speaker: This is important to remember the spirit of the center, especially given what we will talk about is happening currently and in the last year or so. The idea for a cultural center was debated in Congress and until 1858 when President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the National Cultural Center Act into law.
Speaker: President John F. Kennedy asked Roger L. Stevens to chair the board of trustees of the National Cultural Center. Stevens then appointed First Lady Jackie Kennedy to be the center's honorary chairman and former First Lady Mamie Eisenhower as co-chair.
Speaker: Fundraising beyond what the federal government had earmarked for the project was difficult until the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the reimagination of the center as a living memorial to him.
Speaker: Even foreign countries provided donations. The Italian government actually donated 3,700 tons of Carrara marble worth $1.5 million. dollars President Lyndon B. Johnson dug the first shovel at the groundbreaking for the center on December 1964.
Speaker: nineteen sixty four But even with this groundbreaking ceremony, there was ongoing debate about the location of the site, which delayed plans.
Speaker: Excavation eventually began on December 11, 1965 and spanned to January
Speaker: The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was opened in 1971. The first performance was on September 5, 1971. 2200 audience members watched the premiere of Mass by Leonard Bernstein in the Opera House.
Speaker: The official opening gala was on September 8, 1971, where again mass was performed. The concert hall was opened on September 9, 1971, with a performance by the National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Antal Dorati.
Speaker: The Kennedy Opera House opened on September 10, 1971, with a performance of the opera Beatrix Sensi by Alberto Ginastera. The Eisenhower Theater opened on October 18, 1971, with a performance of Doll's House.
Speaker: The center serves as a living memorial to Jack and is the residence of the National Symphony Orchestra since opening its doors in 1971. During the opening night gala of the Kennedy Center, Rose Kennedy said, quote, young people will come here and they will see this cultural center They will carry some of these ideas back to their different communities.
Speaker: So it's important to remember that the federal government owns the building and the land of the cultural center, but it's the Kennedy Center's board that runs the facility and manages the operation. The federal government, in theory, does not have a say in those operations.
Speaker: The center operates as a non-profit And in 2024, under the Biden administration, it reported $307 million dollars in revenue to the IRS.
Speaker: Before we discuss what's happened in the last week or so, we need to go back a little bit and talk about Donald Trump's role in the Kennedy Center in both his first and second presidential terms.
Speaker: There was a significant shift in attitude toward the Kennedy Center between Trump's first and second terms. During the first term, he mostly avoided events when awardees or or performers threatened to boycott if he attended. He kind of risk like, I don't want to say respect. That's not the right word, but he just avoided it. He stayed away from the center. In March 2020, the center was granted $25 million in the COVID stimulus package, and Trump was excited to do that.
Speaker: and But by December 2020, Trump directly called out a proposed $40 million dollars line item in the new COVID aid bill that was earmarked for the center as being A frivolous expense.
Speaker: In Trump's second term, the administration became focused on targeting arts, culture, and education, which made the Kennedy Center of a very easy target.
Speaker: In 2025, Trump fired about two dozen board members who had been appointed by Joe Biden. He said that he fired employees, quote, who do not share our vision for a golden age in the arts and culture.
Speaker: The National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities agencies have been gutted and federal grants pulled. Trump appointed new trustees who then appointed him as chairman of the center, and they voted to add his name to the facade on the outside of the building and name it after him.
Speaker: Upon his appointment as chairman, Trump said, quote, so we took over the Kennedy Center. I'm going to be the chairman of it, and we're going to make sure that it's good and it's not going to be woke. There's no more woke in this country.
Speaker: With Trump's appointment as chairman, a lot of things happened very quickly. The Washington National Opera ended its residency, and many scheduled performances were promptly canceled, including a performance of the Broadway musical Hamilton that had been scheduled.
Speaker: Trump's takeover of the Kennedy Center is a move to get away from, quote, woke programming and to restore the center as a, quote, beacon of classical, patriotic, and family-friendly art. What this actually means is reducing the presence of minority communities.
Speaker: LGBTQIA plus events were canceled without explanation, which then led to more artists pulling out of scheduled performances. In December 2025, Trump himself hosted the Kennedy Center Honors, which is an annual kind of award show type of thing that celebrates different cultural icons in our country. As host, he publicly called the facility the, quote, Trump-Kennedy Center.
Speaker: In January 2026, the center hosted the world premiere of Melania, a documentary about about Trump's wife and first lady.
Speaker: The center has also hosted Charlie Kirk's memorial service and the FIFA World Cup draw, where Trump was given some sort of peace prize by the center. This was when he was saying he should get the Nobel Peace Prize. So the Kennedy Center was like, well, here's a peace prize.
Speaker: Vice President J.D. Vance's wife, Usha Vance, has has been at the forefront of encouraging more family-friendly programming be brought to the center. In February 2026, Trump announced that the center would close that following July for renovations and would remain closed for two years.
Speaker: In the past few months, some legal battles have began over the Kennedy Center. In May 2026, federal U.S. court judge Christopher Cooper ruled that the board illegally added Trump's name to the building and ordered its removal.
Speaker: The board complied, but it left up the scaffolding and a tarp over the name of the center, so it's covering Kennedy's name. In August 2026, the board voted to change the facade to, quote, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, restored and renovated by President Donald J. Trump.
Speaker: They also decided that if the center reached $100 million dollars in donations, another inscription would be added that reads, quote, endowed by the Trump Kennedy Center Fund.
Speaker: The plaza in front of the center would also be renamed after Trump. Lawyers for the administration said that that the center would have struggled to raise any money without the recognition of the president.
Speaker: And they say that when the center deteriorates, if his name isn't added, it will be replaced by something else that has been proposed, and we know it'll be named after Trump.
Speaker: So that brings us, all that kind of background stuff brings us to this week. I am recording this on September 21st, so just so you know where we are in our timeline. On September 15th, 2026, the board of the Kennedy Center voted to close the center for two years for renovations.
Speaker: At 4.30 p.m., an announcement came over the public address system saying, quote, the center is now closed to the public. Please exit the center by way of the Hall of States.
Speaker: Almost immediately, barricades were erected and security guards installed to block access. The board said that extensive work needed to be done, and $257 million dollars was included in Trump's Big Beautiful Bill for the Project of Restoration.
Speaker: To be fair, there was a partial collapse of a section of the ceiling earlier this month. So there ah there is work that needs to be done. Federal Judge Cooper blocked the board from adding Trump's name to the building, saying Congress needed to approve the change.
Speaker: Ohio Democratic Congresswoman Joyce Beattie, Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, brought a suit to the U.S. District Court. They, quote, allege that the closure is a pretext to hide a financial death spiral caused by artist boycotts and dwindling ticket sales.
Speaker: White House spoke of three phases of Trump's attack on the center. Number one, he called, quote, mob bust gone wrong. This is the stage where contracts were given to the administration itself and Trump's friends and And the Kennedy Center was charging expensive goods to the Kennedy Center budget and accounts.
Speaker: We are also seeing political favors being given to Trump allies. He said the second phase was this whole renaming fiasco, which he called lethal for the business model of the center.
Speaker: And finally, the third phase was the threat of destruction of the center. Judge Cooper issued an order that requires a 30 days notice before making any physical changes to the building.
Speaker: This 30 day ruling came in lieu of Beattie's requested emergency hearing. She had submitted Trump's remarks about ripping down the center, as well as social media posts and photos as her evidence.
Speaker: Trump responded, saying that the facility would stay closed and renovations not begin until the judge reversed this decision about naming the center. During a virtual board meeting the same day, Trump claimed that he gave $17 million dollars to an endowment for the institution, but there's no actual evidence of this.
Speaker: He's also claimed that the center has lost, quote, hundreds of millions of dollars. This meeting was incredibly tense and included some particularly combative moments between Trump and Representative Beattie.
Speaker: Representative Beattie is an ex-officio member of the board, and she has led the campaign to block Trump's actions. She said that he has caused, quote, extreme harm.
Speaker: In response, Trump said she was, quote, incompetent and, quote, holding up everything. She snapped back, quote, you're holding up the whole country. ah Amazing work.
Speaker: Judge Cooper told the board to provide a detailed status report by Wednesday, September 23rd. On September 16th, a photograph of Trump on Air Force One was released. This picture was taken from the outside of the plane, kind of like through the plane windows. He was holding like a placard and also had like a big poster thing.
Speaker: with big red words on it that read, quote, Kennedy Center demolished. It appears to be plans for the demolition of the building. A staff member at the Washington Litigation Group, which is one of the firms that represents Representative Beattie, said in a court filing that's that she saw a forklift, quote, run into and hit the pillars on the building several times on the 15th when the crew put the gates up Eight different groups have asked Judge Cooper to appoint various people to protect the building during these lawsuits, saying the board is not meeting their responsibilities to care for the institution.
Speaker: In a statement to NPR, quote, President Trump chose to make himself a Kennedy Center trustee. and the reconstituted board elected him chair. With those positions come legal and ethical responsibilities. A trustee cannot sit still while the institution fails.
Speaker: Nor can a trustee withhold the exercise of fiduciary responsibilities to obtain personal honor. On Friday, September 18th, about a dozen staff members were laid off from the Kennedy Center, including the center's lead spokesperson.
Speaker: Trump blamed Representative Beattie's litigation for for the layoffs. Also on that day, Trump announced that news outlets CNN, MS Now, and Politico were banned from the White House.
Speaker: JFK's niece, Kerry Kennedy, has been very vocally opposed to all of Trump's decisions with the center, saying, quote, like a child who can't play with a toy, he wants to stomp on the toy.
Speaker: But this is not a toy. This is the living memorial to a slain president. It would be like adding the Trump name to the Trump Lincoln Memorial or the Trump Jefferson Memorial or the Trump Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
Speaker: The courts have spoken. He cannot demolish it. He cannot put his name on it. And he should be focused instead on his job. So as of now, the Kennedy Center has lost audiences, donors, and its dedicated staff and volunteers.
Speaker: In response, the Hands Off the Arts organization formed to respond to these leadership changes made by Trump and his administration. They are demanding Trump's removal as chairman on the grounds of him and his board failing to protect and manage the center.
Speaker: The goals of the organization are to, quote, spark arts as rebellion, reclaim the Kennedy Center from authoritarian overreach, and protect other arts and cultural institutions from similar fates, and to raise courage while countering demoralization.
Speaker: Former assistant manager of dance programming, Mallory Miller, who was laid off in the first waves of dismissals in 2025, said, quote, the Kennedy Center can't be renamed for anyone else.
Speaker: It's a memorial to John F. Kennedy. It's like silly to suggest otherwise. And it's not just silly, it's insulting, it's degrading, and it's un-American. On Friday night, the Hands Off Our Arts organization led a protest called Hands Around the Kennedy Center.
Speaker: The protest included musical performances, speeches, and testimonials before protesters then made a human chain around the building. So what is the future of the Kennedy Center?
Speaker: Well, the center has been consistently losing audiences, they've turned to quote papering the house, which is a theater term that means basically filling seats with free or discounted ticket holders.
Speaker: The National Symphony Orchestra is playing other venues around Washington, D.C. And the Kennedy Center is having a difficult time finding acts that are willing to come and perform.
Speaker: Between the closure, the renovations, and the loss of audiences and performers, It is likely to take months, if not years, to return the Kennedy Center to what it once was.
Speaker: At this point, donors and performers simply will not come back if Trump remains chairman. So that is where we are with the fight for the Kennedy Center.
Speaker: It's important to remember that historically, art has always been a tool of protest as well as a tool of bringing joy and relief in difficult times. So I think the protests around what's happening to the Kennedy Center are beautiful and important and necessary and show the true spirit of Americans. But we'll see. So so in a couple days, we'll have a bit more information.
Speaker: And ah what we'll probably do is try to keep up with it with the ongoing Kennedy series instead of doing like drop-in episodes every every so often. We'll just kind of give updates as news breaks, I suppose. So thank you so much for joining me for this bonus episode.
Speaker: We are very excited to get back to the ah RFK episode. conspiracy theories, and then move on to Ted Kennedy in the upcoming weeks. So we hope you continue to join us and we will talk again soon. Bye.
