It feels like this happened ten years ago, because 2025 has been an unyielding pile of bulls–t, but one of the first things Donald Trump did this year was try to “take over” the Kennedy Center. He fired the Kennedy Center president and forced almost all of the board members out, then replaced them all with MAGA loyalists. He promised that the Kennedy Center would only do non-woke, anti-DEI programs from now on. He and his loyal band of cultural savages tried to make the Kennedy Center into THEIR showcase. It has gone poorly because everything Trump touches dies and/or becomes incredibly uncool. Well, now the “board” has “decided” to rename the center into the Trump-Kennedy Center. My god.
The Kennedy Center is being renamed the “Trump-Kennedy Center,” after President Donald Trump ousted the previous Democratic board members and management team and installed himself as chairman. The unanimous vote on the naming decision by the Kennedy Center’s board members, whom Trump selected, came after the president announced in February that he was “unanimously” elected to lead the board of the Washington, D.C., cultural center. The full new name will be “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts,” according to the center’s VP of public relations, Roma Daravi.
News that the facility is to be renamed the Trump-Kennedy Center was announced Thursday by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on X.
“I have just been informed that the highly respected Board of the Kennedy Center, some of the most successful people from all parts of the world, have just voted unanimously to rename the Kennedy Center to the Trump-Kennedy Center, because of the unbelievable work President Trump has done over the last year in saving the building,” Leavitt wrote. “Not only from the standpoint of its reconstruction, but also financially, and its reputation. Congratulations to President Donald J. Trump, and likewise, congratulations to President Kennedy, because this will be a truly great team long into the future! The building will no doubt attain new levels of success and grandeur.”
The legality of the move was quickly disputed. “The Kennedy Center is a living memorial to a fallen president and named for President Kennedy by federal law,” Joe Kennedy III, one of JFK’s grandnephews and a former U.S. representative from Massachusetts, wrote in a post on X. “It can no sooner be renamed than can someone rename the Lincoln Memorial, no matter what anyone says.”
Journalist Maria Shriver, a niece of JFK, also strongly objected to the name change. “It is beyond comprehension that this sitting president has sought to rename this great memorial dedicated to President Kennedy,” she wrote on X. “It is beyond wild that he would think adding his name in front of President Kennedy’s name is acceptable. It is not.” Shriver added: “Can we not see what is happening here? C’mon, my fellow Americans! Wake up! This is not dignified. This is not funny. This is way beneath the stature of the job. It’s downright weird. It’s obsessive in a weird way.”
Yes, the Kennedy Center is a federal building and the board can’t unilaterally “decide” to change the center’s name. Then again, Trump unilaterally decided to demolish the White House East Wing and people barely even talk about it anymore. Trump won’t rest unless it’s the middle of an Oval Office meeting and/or he beclowns every single federal institution, federal building, cabinet department or agency. What’s next? Renaming the Pentagon to “Trump’s Beefy Big Boy He-Man Clubhouse”? Pete Hegseth just took ten shots and signed off on it.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images, Avalon Red.
