By Lynda Kirkpatrick
We wake up every day to another act of devious tricks from Donald Trump and his Republican cult. The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Performing Arts opened on September 8, 1971, on the bank of the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. It is the official residence of the National Symphony Orchestra and the Washington National Opera. It was named the National Cultural Center and was renamed the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 1964, following the assassination of President Kennedy.
In 1961, President Kennedy asked Roger L. Stevens to help develop the National Cultural Center and serve as chairman of the Board of Trustees. Stevens recruited First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy as honorary chairman of the center, and former First Lady Mamie Eisenhower as co-chairman. President John F. Kennedy was interested in bringing culture to the nation’s capital and provided leadership and support for the project.
Since the beginning, the Kennedy Center has been the ultimate of dignity, class, and culture of every venue of the arts. The Concert Hall is the largest performance space in the Kennedy Center and is the home of the National Symphony Orchestra. The Opera House is the home of the Kennedy Center Honors and the Washington National Opera. The Eisenhower Theater, on the north side, seats about 1,161 and is named for President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who signed the National Cultural Center Act into law on September 2, 1958. It primarily hosts plays and musicals, smaller-scale operas, ballet, and contemporary dance. There are twelve other entertainment venues inside the building.
The Kennedy Center offers one of the few open-air rooftop terraces in Washington, D.C. It is free of charge to the public from 10:00 a.m. until midnight each day, except when closed for private events. The wide terrace provides views in all four directions overlooking the Rosslyn skyline in Arlington County, Virginia, to the west; the Potomac River and to the South the National Airport, the Washington Harbor and the Watergate complex to the north, and the Lincoln Memorial, Department of State buildings, George Washington University and the Saudi embassy to the east.
Since 1978, the Kennedy Center Honors have been awarded annually by the center‘s Board of Trustees. Each year, five artists or groups are honored for their lifetime contributions to American culture and the performing arts, including dance, music, theater, opera, film, and television.
Trump decided to make unsolicited changes to the Kennedy Center by first naming Richard Grenell as the interim executive director. Trump criticized the Center’s LGBTQ programming and vowed to make himself the one who decides what is to be performed. He dismissed the Board members and named his own, who elected Trump the Chair. It will be no surprise that he cancelled the national tour of the new children’s musical Finn which is a play about coming of age themes. This resulted in many celebrities disassociating themselves from the Center. The musical Hamilton has cancelled their performances. Cast members pulled out of a June performance of Les Misérables at the center that Trump planned to attend; Grenell called them “vapid and intolerant artists”. In May 2025, Washington Performing Arts announced the relocation of its scheduled 2025-2026 season concerns to other venues away from the Kennedy Center.
In July, U.S. House Republicans of the United States House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies amended the 2026 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies spending bill to include a clause renaming the Kennedy Center Opera House to the Melania Trump Opera House. The amendment still requires approval by the entire U.S. House of Representatives.
This is nothing less than a narcissistic, self-serving plan that Trump needs to feed his never-ending ego. He gets his kicks out of seeing his name on buildings. The House Republicans and Trump either do not understand that they are breaking the law by which the Kennedy Center was created, or they do not care. Three former board members for the Kennedy Center told NBC News that the law creating the center prohibited any of the facilities from being renamed, other than the Eisenhower Theater, after the president whose administration first authorized its construction in 1958. The project stalled and was revived under President John F. Kennedy, whose family led an effort to get the center built and named in his honor following his assassination. Two months later, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the legislation making it a living memorial to Kennedy. This will not happen if the Republicans do not pass their budget in the House. There is the possibility that Trump will do as he is famous for and ignore the law entirely and do it unilaterally. This will most likely trigger a court battle.
Trump has replaced the bronze bust of President Kennedy with four large portraits of his family and the family of Vice President J. D. Vance in the main entryway into the Center.
During his first term, the Trumps did not host the Sunday ceremony or attend the concert, following that some of the honorees said they would not attend the White House event in opposition to some of the Trump policies and his controversial comments about the white nationalist march in Charlottesville, Virginia. Past honorees have included a broad spectrum of actors, musicians, and other performers.
President Kennedy’s grandson, Jack Schlossberg, posted strong criticism of the opera house’s renaming proposal last week. Schlossberg, Caroline Kennedy’s son, wrote, “JFK believed the arts made our country great and could be our most effective weapon in the fight for civil rights and against authoritarian governments around the world,” adding, “The Trump administration stands for freedom of oppression, not expression.
Everything he touches turns to … well, certainly not gold. He has this sick obsession to see his name on buildings. This is a slap in the face to the Kennedy family and those of us who are sick of Trump’s nazi behavior to take over anything that has a Democratic connection. He is way out of line to rename this national monument that honors President Kennedy. The Republicans in the House are enabling this manchild in everything he is doing with no regard for their oath to protect our Constitution. The voters are just as much a part of this nazi behavior because they make excuses for him, do not accept the truth, and are in serious denial of what is really happening to our country. What’s next? Martin L. King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., or Franklin Roosevelt Memorial on the side of the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C., or the Lyndon Johnson Memorial Grove on the Potomac? Don’t be surprised if he doesn’t have his ugly face chiseled into Mount Rushmore! Enough is Enough!!
Lynda Kirkpatrick