(AFP) – US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the Kennedy Center will close down — possibly for good — after a judge ruled his name cannot be added onto the famed arts institution’s exterior. Trump said the Washington cultural venue’s trustees voted to shut down for what it says are vital emergency renovations, and that it won’t reopen unless the judgment is overruled.
“The Board of The Kennedy Center today agreed, almost unanimously, to close the Building for Safety reasons, and so that it can begin the process of Reconstruction,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social network. Trump said it would close immediately but noted that the “very large and complex” renovations cannot begin until a higher court rules on whether it can be renamed after himself. “If the ruling is a negative one, which it should not be, and is not overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Reconstruction and the Renovation of The Kennedy Center will not take place.”
Shortly after beginning his second term, Republican Trump installed himself as chairman of the center, which is named in honor of late president John F. Kennedy, a Democrat who championed civil rights before he was assassinated in 1963. The board voted in December to call it the “Trump-Kennedy” Center. The renaming is one of several projects aimed at stamping Trump’s brand on the US capital during his second term, including a triumphal arch and a $400-million ballroom at the White House.
US federal judge Christopher Cooper previously ordered Trump’s name removed from the center’s exterior and overturned the board’s decision to rename the institution. Workers removed Trump’s name from the building in June, but scaffolding and tarps have remained ever since.
– Demolition threat –
Cooper ruled on Tuesday that Trump’s name cannot be added back, rebuking the center for trying to circumvent an earlier order. “Simply put,” wrote Cooper in his decision, the board “cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’s blessing.” The ruling came as the board met to consider a shutdown of the center, citing fiscal and safety concerns. Last month, the board moved forward with a plan to add new signage on the building that would read “renovated and restored by President Donald J. Trump.” Cooper on Tuesday said that plan was in violation of his previous ruling.
Trump and his chosen leaders of the Kennedy Center have argued that its main building, which was constructed in the 1960s, is in a state of dangerous disrepair. As evidence of the safety problems, the president pointed to a recent incident in which a piece of the ceiling tumbled to the ground following a storm. “If the Building were open, innocent people would have been killed,” he wrote in a post on Truth Social before the judge’s ruling. “The Board of The Kennedy Center has strongly voted to save it, and they know I’m the only one who can do so, because I have the ability to raise the money, and the ability to construct — that few others have,” Trump said.
Last month, as part of court proceedings, the Trump administration warned that the center may need to be demolished if its plans to renovate the building were blocked. A host of artists canceled concerts at the venue in response to Trump’s takeover, while US media has reported that Kennedy Center ticket sales have plummeted.
– Danny KEMP and Daniel STUBLEN
© 2024 AFP
