From The Washington Post:
Kennedy Center closes as Trump threatens to stop repairs over naming fight
In a chaotic day, leaders closed down the main building hours after a judge blocked another attempt to return President Donald Trump’s name to the center.
Hours after a federal judge barred the center from putting Trump’s name back on the building, the president said that although the center would close immediately, renovations “cannot begin until such time as the D.C. Circuit rules on the Board’s approved name.” (That appeals court in June rejected an attempt to keep Trump’s name on the building.)
If the appeals court rules against the center and the Supreme Court does not overturn that decision, Trump said, “the Reconstruction and the Renovation of The Kennedy Center will not take place.”
Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), the Kennedy Center trustee who challenged the addition of Trump’s name in court, accused the president of putting his desire for recognition ahead of an institution that serves as both a memorial to an assassinated president and as one of the nation’s premier performing arts venues.
“President Trump is holding the Kennedy Center hostage unless he can put his name on this sacred memorial,” Beatty said. “The Court just rejected this proposal for the second time. This unlawfulness is as breathtaking as it is wrong, and it needs to stop.”
The extraordinary sequence brought together nearly every strand of Trump’s transformation of the national cultural institution: his efforts to put his name on the presidential memorial, a renovation he has championed as essential to saving the aging building, a deepening financial crisis and a legal fight with a board minority that has repeatedly challenged his plans.
The consequences became visible within hours.
At about 4:30 p.m., a message played over the Kennedy Center’s speakers announcing that it had closed. Security guards escorted visitors out through the Hall of Nations. Outside, digital signs that typically advertise upcoming performances instead flashed a red “EMERGENCY ALERT” announcing that the building was closed to the public. Guards stood at the doors while, through the glass, a few staff members could be seen hugging.
But the rollout appeared haphazard. Less than an hour later, the digital warnings had vanished and guards had unblocked some doors. By about 6 p.m., all doors were locked.Trustees approved the closure after administrators warned that keeping the main building open would endanger lives. The resolution ordered the building closed to patrons “forthwith” while allowing programming to continue at the Reach and off-site venues.
Center spokeswoman Roma Daravi said the board had put safety first and described the renovations as “long overdue and desperately needed to protect the safety of patrons, artists and staff.”
The Center remains committed to pursuing a safe and efficient renovation through all legal means,” Daravi said.
Trump pointed to a Sept. 4 incident in which, according to center officials, a roughly 4-by-5-foot section of ceiling plaster broke loose in the Grand Foyer during a severe storm and plunged about 60 feet to the floor below. No one was injured. Inspectors subsequently identified at least seven other locations with visible water-related deterioration, according to materials prepared for trustees.
“If the Building were open, innocent people would have been killed,” Trump said in a social media post Tuesday.
Engineers have separately found widespread corrosion in structural components supporting exterior soffit panels suspended about 60 feet above public walkways, according to Matt Floca, the center’s executive director who was handpicked by Trump in March. Of roughly half of the building’s 278 panels examined, 46 had severe structural corrosion and another 93 had mild-to-moderate corrosion. Engineers projected that about one-third require immediate replacement.
The center’s management has portrayed those problems as part of a broader network of aging and deteriorating systems that cannot safely be repaired while the building remains occupied. Materials distributed to trustees also cite water intrusion into electrical areas, corroded structural steel in the parking garage and aging mechanical and theatrical systems.
Paolo Zampolli, a Trump-appointed trustee since 2020 who voted for the immediate closure, said he had personally walked through the building and came away convinced it was dangerous. He rejected arguments that repairs could be performed piecemeal while the center remained open, saying construction of this scale required clearing the building.
“The building is a disaster. The building is a danger,” Zampolli said in an interview after the vote. “I don’t want my son to go there.”
Zampolli, who works in real estate, said trustees could be responsible if someone were injured and argued that the building should be closed, repaired and reopened as quickly as possible. “You cannot work on a demolition site,” he said. “You shut it down.”
Critics of the closure have disputed management’s characterization of the danger and accused center leaders of using long-standing maintenance problems to justify a shutdown they already wanted.
Beatty’s lawyers said in a court filing Monday that Delta Consulting Group, which reviewed the center’s renovation plans, had expressly disclaimed reaching the conclusion attributed to it in a draft resolution that the building was “unsafe for continued occupancy.”
The naming dispute has become increasingly entangled with another crisis confronting the center: money.
Materials prepared for Tuesday’s meeting, but dropped from the agenda Monday, warned that the center had “exhausted its fiscal resources” and could become unable to meet payroll or pay routine maintenance bills “within a matter of weeks.” The draft resolution said Trump had offered to raise enough money to keep the center afloat during the renovation but was unlikely to provide “fundamental oversight” of the project or “lead the fiscal rescue of the Center” without “appropriate recognition” on the building. The draft offered trustees 10 possible inscriptions honoring Trump.
Trump said Tuesday that he had raised $17 million that had been deposited into a Kennedy Center account “to keep it afloat.” The Washington Post has not independently verified that figure.
The warnings follow a financial deterioration The Post documented last month. Internal budgets and forecasts showed that by May the center expected to collect about $124 million of the $220 million in revenue it had budgeted for the fiscal year, leaving a projected deficit of roughly $23 million even after substantial spending cuts.
Center leaders have blamed previous management for the institution’s financial problems and said Trump’s name has attracted new donors. But confidential financial records obtained by The Post showed ticket sales and fundraising plunging after trustees added Trump’s name to the building in December.
On Tuesday morning, Cooper blocked the center’s latest attempt to recognize Trump on the building, reiterating his May ruling that Congress — not the trustees — controls whom the national memorial honors.
“Simply put, Defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’s blessing,” Cooper wrote. “The board resolution bucks a federal court order and a statute Congress enacted.”
The decision addressed a resolution trustees approved Aug. 13 to inscribe “Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump” on the facade.
Daravi said the center would continue fighting the ruling.
“We intend to appeal today’s Court ruling and move forward with recognizing Chairman President Trump’s historic contributions to the revitalization of America’s Cultural Center,” she said.
Beatty accused Trump of effectively conditioning the center’s future on receiving the recognition courts have said its trustees cannot legally provide.
“Donald Trump only cares about the Kennedy Center for his vanity,” Beatty said in a statement after the board meeting. “That is wrong and it is a breach of his fiduciary duty as a trustee.”
Other Democratic trustees also criticized the decision. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Virginia) said in a statement that the center has legitimate problems but argued its leaders should work with Congress to address them. Larsen said the focus should be on “repairing and restoring the Kennedy Center.”
The legal fight has repeatedly disrupted Trump’s plans for the institution. In May, Cooper ruled that only Congress could rename the Kennedy Center and ordered Trump’s name removed from the building, months after leaders had installed it above John F. Kennedy’s. In the same decision, Cooper temporarily blocked an earlier attempt to close the building, finding trustees had acted on insufficient information and had not adequately considered the consequences. He allowed them to reconsider after a fuller review.
Trustees did so in August, again approving a roughly two-year closure. Tuesday’s vote accelerated that timetable by ordering the main building closed immediately.
Members of the Kennedy family also criticized Trump’s continued pursuit of recognition at the memorial. Kerry Kennedy, daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, said the center was created as a living tribute to her uncle, who believed in art’s power to bring people together.
“It is shameful that it has become a weapon in this administration’s culture war,” Kennedy said in a statement.
Maria Shriver, another niece of Kennedy’s, focused specifically on Trump’s determination to attach his name to her uncle’s. “It seems that this man will not rest until his name is permanently connected to the name of a great president, whose memory this building was dedicated to,” Shriver wrote on X. “Imagine spending your days focused on this, while a war rages under your leadership.”
Center officials say programming will continue at the Reach and at off-site venues, including performances by the National Symphony Orchestra. The Kennedy Center Honors and Mark Twain Prize will also move elsewhere, and the memorial to John F. Kennedy is to be temporarily relocated to the Reach while the main building is closed.
The building, meanwhile, is now closed for a renovation that Trump says cannot yet begin.
Maura Judkis and Elahe Izadi contributed to this report.
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