On Friday, Donald Trump announced that he would appoint himself president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, adding that he will immediately fire several board members and the current president.
The Kennedy Center is arguably the most important cultural center in the country, and is operated through a public-private partnership. The facility, located along the Potomac River in Washington, DC, opened in 1971. Over these long years, the center has hosted musical and theatrical performances, artwork of various kinds, and performance art: the likes of Led Zeppelin and Tina Turner have performed here.
On Friday, in one of his usual vitriolic statements, Trump declared: “At my direction, we are going to make the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., GREAT AGAIN”. However, a spokesperson for the institution explained that it was aware of Trump’s post on Truth Social, but had not received any official communication from the White House regarding changes in our board of directors.
The current president of the Kennedy Center is David Rubenstein, a billionaire philanthropist and co-founder of the private equity firm Carlyle Group. Rubenstein has held the position since 2010 and was due to retire this year. After Trump’s election, however, the center said it had been unable to find a new leader, so Rubenstein would remain in office until September 2026.
The latter served as a policy adviser to Jimmy Carter and is also reportedly very close to Joe Biden. Members of the center’s board are usually appointed by the president. Currently, several Trump supporters also serve on the board, such as Attorney General Pam Bondi, Brian Ballard, and singer Lee Greenwood. They also include Karine Jean-Pierre, Biden’s spokeswoman.
The presidency of the institute, on the other hand, has always been assigned by the board members, according to the law authorized by Congress in 1958, the year the center, first conceived by Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1930s, was approved for implementation.
“There is nothing in the center’s statute that would prevent a new administration from replacing board members,” the center’s spokesperson said. “However, this would be the first time such action has been taken with the Kennedy Center’s board.”
For his part, Trump is intent on dismissing Rubenstein and the Board because they don’t “share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture”. The MAGA leader also accused the institute of hosting “Drag Shows specifically targeting our youth: THIS WILL STOP”.
