Can The Kennedy Center Survive Trump?

0:00Today on CityCast DC thousands of ordinary Washingtonians showed up Friday night for a protest at the Kennedy Center. It was the biggest one to date. They were motivated by a new fear that Donald Trump really, really, really might actually tear the place down. This is the result of a week or more of head spinning action in the saga of the building. The Atlantic's Gen. A. King's Bayer has been covering the story from the beginning. She is here to bring us up to speed. Before we get started, today's Theatre Week shout out is from Shakespeare Theatre Company. Frida, a self-portrait is a stunning one-person show about the iconic artist Frida Collo. Playing October 8th through November 8th at Shakespeare Theatre Company's Climb Theatre. Get tickets for Frida, a self-portrait today at Shakespeare Theatre dot org. Today is Wednesday, September 23rd. I'm Michael Schaefer, and here's what DC is talking about. Tonight, thank you for being here.

1:09Thank you for having me. Listen, you've done some of the most original and interesting reporting on Kennedy Center in the Atlantic. In broad strokes, can you bring us up to speed about what the latest is there as of right now? It's moving pretty fast. It is. Yes, it's been quite a whirlwind. Really within the past week, we've seen a lot of developments and seen this fight kind of escalate in dramatic ways. The latest is that the Kennedy Center Board has once again voted to close the Center for two years. We are still waiting a judge's ruling on that if he will lift this preliminary injunction and allow the Kennedy Center to close. In the meantime, the Board has decided to just temporarily close for the next week. They have also once again tried to install President Trump's name to the buildings facade, which a judge ruled last week that that cannot happen.

2:11Once again, the judge has cited that this is illegal and that Congress established the Kennedy Center as a memorial to John F. Kennedy and only Congress can change that name. They voted to close for a week, saying this was an urgent physical security need because this little piece of roof fell. I assume at this point, there's conspiracy theories about everything, but is it accepted that the roof legitimately is a problematic thing? Well, it's been really hard to learn anything else about what happened. What the Kennedy Center is saying is that this major storm that came earlier this month intensified exacerbated water issues within the building, water intrusion, and that's what led to this big chunk of ceiling crashing to the floor. As President Trump has put it, there was one worker who just narrowly missed being

3:14injured by this plaster falling from the ceiling. Have they made that worker available to reporters? Do we know if this is a make-believe worker or a real worker? We've seen the security footage showing someone was walking by at the time, but that is all that we have. What's interesting too is that when the Kennedy Center was filing new paperwork to show that it needs to close, they included all this analysis they did of the blast zone. They measured the debris, they measured the width of the ceiling hole, and they did a lot of work to show the extent of the damage, but not whether other areas were impacted, or if this was a wider spread concern that would show that the Kennedy Center needed to close. What does that tell you if anything? I think it's very similar to what we've seen for most of the year, which is that there's

4:14a lot of performative and showy details about damage to the Kennedy Center, but nothing really concrete or substantial about just how necessary these repairs are, or to show that the building could collapse at any moment. Officials and President Trump are continuing to use really dramatic language. We're seeing more language from Commerce Secretary Howard Letnick, and as well as President Trump suggesting that someone could die if we don't close this center now. Did they bring you guys in, reporters, to see this damage? I think it was in the times that's reporting about how they preserved it like a crime scene or something. Exactly. They still won't allow anyone to get close to it, but while the building was still open last week, I did take a look. You can see from the Hall of Nations, this big yellow cone that's set up as well as signs

5:21that say don't access this area. I still was on full display as of last week and I was there. You get the sense that this is a predicate, you know, sort of anything that can be used to strengthen their argument that it must be closed is going to be. Can I back you up? You've been reporting on this for a while. What do they actually want from the Kennedy Center? I mean, it began when Trump took over, ousted the old board, with saying they wanted to change the cultural direction that had become too woke and had objectionable programming or whatever the claim was. No one's really discussing the programming anymore, perhaps because there is no programming because the show has been canceled, places have moved. But like, now lately it's been his name and what's going on? What is the motivation here? No, that's a great question. When President Trump took over the center last year, he claimed that the institution was structurally, financially, and artistically, in disrepair.

6:28What's interesting now is that all of those things are still true. There is no programming. There is no financing from what we've seen. There's no money. The officials are warning that they could go bankrupt within a matter of weeks. The building is still in disrepair as far as we know there's not a lot of work that has been done. But everyone agrees that the building does need work. It's just a matter of if the building needs to close for two years and also what is lost during that time. We've lost so much in the last two years where there hasn't been any programming. Staff has been completely decimated. Now to close the institution for two years, we're talking about more of a recovery that this is going to take when the building finally reopens. The damage that's been done with artists' relationships, with donors fleeing the center, as well as just there not being any institutional knowledge left within the building, people

7:28who know who have been there for years have all been wiped out. You just said that it is true that the Kennedy Center is currently in financial, artistic, disrepair. But you actually did a piece where you looked at their taxes at the nonprofits tax returns. Two years ago, when Trump took over, was that true that it was in financial distress? No, it actually showed that the Kennedy Center was relatively healthy when the Trump administration took over. I believe it was about a $40 million surplus that had been reported from the previous tax year. When Trump's regime came in, they were in a good place financially. Even looking at their report, which I should say includes some of the previous leadership.

8:28The fiscal year is beginning from October of 2024 to September of 2025. So it didn't capture most of what we're seeing happening now. President Trump's name being on the building, a lot of the donors fleeing, all of the layoffs, Washington National Opera choosing to end its affiliation agreement. So within that window, what we see is a huge, extraordinary financial year. They reported $516 million in revenue. But what's important to remember is that that includes more than $300 million of federal appropriations. So that's both the $257 million that Congress allotted to the Kennedy Center for renovations in the one big, beautiful bill, as well as roughly $45 million at the Kennedy Center normally sees in appropriations each year. When you take out all of that federal funding, what we saw was that the Kennedy Center

9:30actually spent more than it brought in and they were facing a $48 million deficit. So it looks good on the surface, but then you have to put in all those caveats and remember that a lot of this was federally supported during that time. It will be really interesting to see what this next tax year is going to show because that will capture the first full cycle of President Trump's takeover of the Kennedy Center. And so it will include a lot of the dramatic developments we've seen, including his name being added to the center and then removed, as well as other attempts to add his name to the center layoffs and artists and donors and audiences just continuing to flee. So, right, the core of it, which I think that actually both sides of the discourse don't seem to really get.

10:32In the Trump side, it was this radical, woke place and a lot of the money came in, came from two types of person. One was these very elite philanthropic donors, David Rubenstein, most famously. The other part of the money that was coming in was from people who buy tickets to the orchestra or the opera, who were like my mom, a federal retiree, not a person at the barricades or a person who like seeks out of our guard and pushing culture, no offense. Your reporting has suggested both of those elements vanished. That's correct. Yes, we've seen a lot of donors and audiences flee and people that support the institution that have gone there for years are looking for other venues, but they're also the people who are most vocal to about what's happening. I went to the protest on Friday where thousands of people turned out and a lot of the people

11:32I spoke to were folks who lived right across the street in the Watergate building and had moved there specifically so that they could go to shows more often. I met a person there who worked on the building's construction in 1967 when there was just still a hole in the ground and he did the plumbing there and he talked about how he couldn't, like this was something he had to be at and he couldn't miss this. So the protest was really interesting to me because just months earlier we saw another demonstration which was when the crew workers were working to remove Trump's name from the building and hundreds of people turned out for that. They thought that would be a cathartic moment to see those letters come down, but instead what we saw was the tarp go up and the letters of course did come down but they were kind of denied that moment. And then what I noticed that striking with that demonstration versus what I saw on Friday was not only was the crowd much bigger, but this time the fight has escalated.

12:36That's not even about Trump's name on the building now. There's just a genuine concern that the building will be demolished. Right. And the genuine concern obviously was triggered or put on a much higher level by this picture through the window of Air Force One that shows Trump looking at what sure looks like a giant board depicting the Kennedy Center's demolition. Do you have any intel on that? And it looked to me like that was something they kind of knew would be photographed and that's like that was sort of a bit of saber rattling which is like I think pretty typical in like the kind of kabuki theater of big development fights which is his background. Yeah, you know, it's interesting because leading up to that photo we saw President Trump already begin to indicate that he would tear down the building. It started a few weeks ago when officials claimed that without President Trump's name on the building, they would lose critical funding that had been pledged by donors to help

13:41support the building's repair. Do you have any reason to believe that's true? Like of these pledges been made public? They have not at all. And instead, there's just been more mystery. There was the creation of something called the Trump Kennedy Center Foundation as well as the Trump Kennedy Center Fund and this is an endowment that as far as we can tell is separate from the Kennedy Center endowments that are intended to raise money for the institution. So this is a fundraising vehicle that we know very little about. At last week, President Trump said that he would infuse $17 million into a Kennedy Center account to keep the building afloat. At the same time though, he's also saying that if his name isn't back on the building, we won't have the money we need to restore this institution and therefore the building will have to be torn down.

14:42The Congress, as you just said, the Congress has appropriated $257 million, right? So they have already given that money over. Isn't that enough for his Trump saying he's not going to spend it up his name? Is not on it? And how is that legal? Exactly. That's become a big question in the past week is what authority does President Trump even have to stop renovations from happening because there already is money appropriated? And there of course have been claims, as they've made in earlier assessments, that if the building has to stay open, it's going to cost twice the money to renovate the institution. And so they're saying it would be closer to $500 million to renovate the entire thing if it has to stay open and accommodate for phased closures or renovating theaters while audiences are still attending other shows. So the picture that was taken of him on Air Force One, or is looking at this demolition

15:43plan. This within, you know, 12 hours or something, winds up in a court filing by Joyce Beatty, who is a ex officio member of the Kennedy Center Board, which is to say she gets to be there regardless and is not one of the overwhelming majority of people who were installed by Trump and who have sort of rubber stamped his desires. The judge didn't actually rule that you can't tear down the building. All that came out of that was that they have to give 30 days notice before any major changes. What does that mean? Does that mean the judge is still going to rule at some point in the future on whether they can tear down the building? Right. I think the judge is trying to within his authority put as much restraint on the board as he can. And it really is tricky because there's only so much that he can do at this point. And I will note something that was not in that filing, but I've been starting to hear from the judge is that he's considering appointing a receiver to the board.

16:46And this is a third party mediator to just ensure that officials are making sound decisions because at this point, there's been so many twists and turns. There's been filings every week. And my read is that the judge is getting very weary of all of this. And there needs to be something pretty dramatic that needs to happen to kind of reign in the board and help this case come to some kind of conclusion. And so I think that'll be worth watching going forward is whether we can get a mediator involved to ensure that the decisions coming from the board are sound decisions that they have explored all options available in terms of renovating. And also, yes, to understand if there are other factors, forces at play in terms of if

17:47this is all a pretext to cover up for finances, right, which is what Representative Joy Spady is claiming is that they're closing the building because they don't have any money. Because of what they've done, they've tanks box office. And they're so embarrassed by that that they would rather close it than have another two years of nobody buying tickets. Exactly. Yes, Congresswoman Joyce Beatty is saying this is all a show to save face. If the judge appoints a receiver, would that be like effectively the judge is saying, you're now the CEO and you make the decisions. And the Trump and Saul leadership is sidelined. Essentially, yes, that's my understanding. They're there to kind of monitor and supervise and any decisions that are happening are brought to the mediator, this receiver, and that receiver is also reporting to the judge of what's happening. And so it just gets someone on the inside to see what's happening. I can't imagine that Trump would accept that. Right.

18:48I think, you know, we've already seen how he's reacted to a lot of the rulings so far that have come down, including, you know, he's threatened multiple times now to just walk away completely, which, you know, some critics say wouldn't be a threat at all. And maybe that's what the institution needs at this point is for him to step away. And last week we learned that during the board meeting, he really attacked judge Cooper's ruling as well as Congresswoman Beatty and just went on a whole tirade about what's been happening and how he feels that he's being treated unfairly in that he should be recognized for his contributions to the institution. Putting it in such rational terms, but, but based on, I think what you've reported in others, it was a insane ranch. Like what, do you have any quotes from it? Like what, what kind of stuff was he talking? Well, it was a really intense back and forth from what I understand between Congresswoman Beatty and President Trump.

19:49There were moments where he claimed that, you know, if anyone dies, he would put the blame on her. He said that she was in this just for publicity. He claimed at one point that he didn't even know who she was and mispronounced her name, but then at another moment he said her name correctly. And at the same time, she's kind of dishing it back to him and saying that he's a joke that he's not fit to run this institution and that he's the one who's endangering lives. It just, from what I understand, was just an insane moment to witness and to see or to hear that everyone was kind of quiet during this time, but that Congresswoman Beatty really stood her own and they just went at it for a bit before I think Congresswoman Beatty eventually just decided she couldn't, you know, allow this to continue and muted herself. Was she at the table with the rest of the board members or was she on the phone?

20:50As I understand it, everyone was attending virtually. I don't know. Okay. She is a black woman, which we know triggers Trump. Is she the only black person on the board? No, there's also another ex officio member is Hockheim Jeffries, as well as Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch. But I would say a lot of members serving in ex officio roles are not always available to show up to these meetings. Sometimes they send proxies. And so as far as I understand, Representative Joyce Beatty has kind of been one of the only Democrats that have continually shown up. And during this time when Trump is like saying abusive things to her and when she's given right back all of the rest to the board who are overwhelmingly made up of people sort

21:51of inside Trump's political and social orbit, are they saying anything or are they like joining in like good one boss or are they like trying to chill things out or what? My understanding is no one said anything. It was pretty quiet. And I think it's also very reflective of the fight that Representative Joyce Beatty has been in for the better part of a year now, which is that she's done this on her own. We haven't seen much movement from any other lawmakers, whether they're on the board or not to kind of support this challenge that she's taking on an entire board on her own. And there have been moments where she's been ridiculed for it. You know, earlier this year, there was a kind of big show of her filing an amended complaint where she accused the board of not inviting her to one of the board meetings, but it turned out that her invitation was in her spam folder. So a lot of people cracked jokes and said this felt like a deep moment in Washington and

22:54things like that. But she's really been the face of this movement. And you see it when she shows up at demonstrations or when she shows up to court, there are people lined up just cheering her on. And you know, many arts patrons and critics of Trump really consider her a hero and the only reason that we know as much as we do about the Kennedy Center and its finances is because of this fight that she's really pushed through. I want to take you back to the top when the president and people who are supporting his vision of the Kennedy Center when they close their eyes and think, here's what I want to see, not just in two years, but in like 10 years. What do they want? They want his name on the building. Okay. And as we mentioned earlier, they want to see what they call woke programming rooted out of the center. And what we've seen during the limited window of programming that we saw last year, a lot

23:58of faith-based programming, a lot of conservative leaning programming. And that seems to be the extent of the vision we have at this moment, just from that small snapshot of when things were relatively still normal and there was staffing and activity within the building. I think it's a funny thing because they also talk about like wanting a more glamorous place, the fancy restaurant on the roof and chip rianny and yacht parking and celebrities. And you know, it's not judgment on faith-based programming, but that's not usually associated with like that kind of glamour, right? Right. Right. Right. That's a good point. I think Trump's, I had to say obsession with the Kennedy Center, but his, for lack of a better word, like it seems that his interest and taking over the center might have come from his first term. I've heard this from a lot of sources that I've spoken to you within the building that, you know, this all started with the Kennedy Center honors, which is this one of the flagship

25:02events that the institution puts on every year, recognizing individuals across the arts with this award. And presidents typically show up to that and participate and congratulate recipients. But when President Trump was elected for his first term, what I've heard is that a lot of honorees or would-be honorees were turning down the chance to be acknowledged at the Kennedy Center honors because they did not want to be in the same room with President Trump. And as a result, I was told that Kennedy Center officials actually reached out to Trump and said, well, you know, there are a lot of people who don't want you to come. And for that reason, Trump decided not to attend the honors. And I think he's always kind of felt a bit snubbed in that sense. And maybe that's why we're seeing a lot of what's happening now.

26:02Play out was that he wanted to assert his control over the Kennedy Center. And also because we've seen him do that across Washington now at this point with a lot of the other projects. Like the White House correspondent, Stinner, he got made fun of. Exactly. I hesitate to ask you because you're a reporter for your prediction, but like people you are at least people you're talking to, what do they think is the most realistic thing that's going to happen next? I've been hearing different things actually. So there, I mean, there is an emerging arising movement or concern that the Kennedy Center might actually be torn down. That for a while, you know, we kind of looked at that as like the Kennedy Center doomers and people who just were maybe thinking about the most far-fetched possibility, but that has become a greater concern for folks. And especially because we've seen that President Trump has been able to quickly tear down things with very little notice if any at all.

27:05And so that is still one possibility. I think what is more likely and what more people think will happen is that this is just going to continue to play out in courts that we are kind of stuck in legal purgatory for the next two years. And especially depending on how the midterms turn out, you know, if Democrats seize control, if Republicans keep control of both chambers, like what will that mean in terms of any sort of congressional intervention? Because again, the Kennedy Center was established by Congress and only Congress can really make structural changes to the board, to its governance that could prevent some of these drastic changes that were seeing happen at the institution. So I think that's another thing to consider is that we might just be in this for the long haul and the center will be a shell of itself for a while. Well, the good news is that we'll give us excuses to have you back to tell us what's going down. So thank you so much for being here.

28:06Thank you for having me. And that's all for today here on CityCast. If you enjoyed this show, why not tell a friend, rate the show, leave us a review and subscribe to our Morning Newsletter. We will be back tomorrow morning with more news from around the city. Bye.