For monthsThe dwindling ranks of staff at the Kennedy Center have been bracing for July, when the Washington, DC, gallery is slated to close. How the wounded institution would bounce back from a two-year shutdown ordered by the US president – and what it would look like once it did – were the big questions. This week brought the biggest one: How can it stay open?
In a pair of decisions today, a federal judge dealt two blows to Trump’s stewardship of the Kennedy Center, which he took last year: US District Judge Christopher Cooper ordered the removal of Trump’s name from the institution, which Congress established as a living memory of President John F. Kennedy in 1964, and partially accepted the moratorium on the move, saying that previous plans for a moratorium had been suspended. “There is no evidence that the Board considered its full legal responsibilities in determining that the total closure of the Kennedy Center was appropriate,” Cooper wrote in 94 pages of reviews in a case filed by a member of Congress. Trump announced a two-year renovation of the Kennedy Center in February, following a year in which the political center saw declining audiences and high-profile artists canceling appearances.
And now? President he wrote today on the Social Truth that he wants to remove responsibility for the Kennedy Center from Congress: “Unless I am free to do what I do best than anyone else, to restore this Institution, physically, financially, and artistically, I have no intention of continuing the hopeless journey to ‘NEVER NEVER LAND.’
In December, not long after Trump himself hosted the Kennedy Center Honors, the board whose chief trustees were all appointed by Trump voted to rename the Kennedy Center to include the president. But Cooper said the law made it “absolutely clear” that the building would only be named after Kennedy. “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,” Cooper wrote. He left open the possibility of the board closing the center for renovations after “freely balancing its many responsibilities for the Center in a prudent manner.” (In a separate case, filed by a coalition of historic preservationists and architects, Cooper rejected the same request for an order, because the plaintiffs had not shown that the modification was subject to certain federal review processes.)
The Kennedy Center wrote to me in a statement that it will review the judge’s order to keep the facility open and added that it will pursue every legal option to carry out the planned renovation work. It was more direct about Trump’s name. “We are confident that upon appeal the court will consider the Board’s desire to recognize President Trump’s historic contributions to our nation’s cultural center,” Roma Daravi, the center’s vice president of public relations, said.
But the station’s comments reflect a disagreement with Trump, whose post on Social Truth suggests he is ready to break away from the cultural establishment entirely.
It’s unclear what will happen next, unless the plaintiff, Representative Joyce Beatty, and Justice Department lawyers representing the Kennedy Center continue to battle it out in court. Trump had insisted that his renovations would restore the tottering building. But the staff I spoke to today worried that he has already completely destroyed the institution that lives there.
The center has felt like a ghost ship in recent months, they told me. With little internal communication, limited programming, and closed or closed departments, the national cultural center seemed to have gone into hiding. The workers, who spoke to me on condition of anonymity for fear of punishment, described the center as a shell. As all their responsibilities have dried up, they have found themselves with nothing to do.
“We’ve already shot ourselves in the foot,” one man said. “It’s going to be a Herculean effort to try and save the absolute mess it’s become.”
Even before Trump’s February announcement of plans to shut down the center, the center was in turmoil as artists, donors and donors fled the institution in defiance of the president’s move to take office. Starting in March, the center reduced its staff with a series of layoffs.
Meanwhile, Broadway tours of the Kennedy Center have been canceled. The Washington National Opera abandoned its association and became mobile. The station’s remaining host, the National Symphony Orchestra, has begun making plans to spend two seasons performing elsewhere. And while the station hasn’t made any recent disclosures about its finances, its resources are likely to be affected by declining ticket sales and donations. For long time supporters of the stationThere may be no good results at this time.
Instead of his own program, many events at the Kennedy Center have recently been booked as campus rentals by Trump allies and organizations that support the name change, the employee said, adding: “Which makes me feel like that could dry up when his name drops with gratitude.”
Kennedy Center Executive Director Matt Floca also claimed earlier this week in a court filing that fundraising could be jeopardized by the removal of Trump’s name — a statement surprising to observers who recall reports of a drop in donations. because of the relationship of the president. Floca also provided a surprising, and perhaps unfortunate, window into the center’s health: Despite earlier claims that fundraising was. it increased to $130 million last year under Trump, Floca told Cooper that the center has raised tens of millions of dollars over that period.
The filing was the Kennedy Center’s latest request for Cooper following several efforts in recent months to preserve Trump’s plan.
For most of this yearleaders at the Kennedy Center have been making the case that their workplace should be closed. In March, Trump exchanged with Richard Grenella fierce loyalist who would have chosen him last year to lead the institute, to the low-key Floca, then head of the station. After a year of negative headlines and artist cancellations, the station’s status shifted from a full-blown political operation to a site under construction.
The first step was the court of public opinion.
On a sunny midweek morning last month, Floca took a group of journalists, including myself, into the bowels of the Kennedy Center for a tour of the renovations. He led us through flooded tunnels and pointed out issues that Trump had raised repeatedly over the past year: crumbling concrete; rust iron; deterioration of marble slabs; coolers, boilers and other outdated equipment.
The dark and ruined corridors certainly looked ominous. But I left the tour scratching my head, wondering if this was all just normal wear and tear for a 55-year-old building, and if its renovations should make the 1.5 million square foot space uninhabitable for two years. (Arts leaders generally prefer a gradual renovation rather than a permanent closure to get audiences in the habit of showing up.) In any case, the Kennedy Center got the result it wanted: Media reports published within hours of the visit presented Floca’s claims without refutation and showed vivid images of rust and decay.
The second stage was the court.
The two lawsuits, from Beatty and historic preservationists, were heard back-to-back in U.S. District Court last month. When Floca took the stand in the conservation suit, he offered a case full of technical details and specifics about the renovation schedule—that is, he tried to outline a serious plan, not a Trump vanity project. From the moment he arrived at the Kennedy Center in 2024, Floca had said that he was “stunned” to see his deterioration.
“The administration, at that time, knew that we were not telling people the true needs of the college,” Floca testified. As for stopping the upgrade, he said, “It’s impossible and irresponsible.” In a court statement, he said he came up with the idea for the shutdown, pushing back against suggestions that Trump made the call to cover up the station’s shortcomings.
Floca sought to distance himself from Trump’s implication that he would renovate the structure, rejecting any plans to demolish or rebuild the facility. He also named the center’s new director—Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts—as the “second” name for the Kennedy memorial.
During the visit, Floca addressed criticism that the closure is a smokescreen for the Kennedy Center’s dire financial situation. “Throughout the industry, it’s been said many times that sales are difficult for performing arts centers and that this building, this organization, is no different,” he told reporters. “But the decision to close the facility is based entirely on the maintenance needs of this building and not the mission, or not the programming, or not being able to achieve that mission.”
Floca is one of the few executive-level leaders who preceded Trump’s inauguration and has admirers among senior staff.
But he is not an arts administrator, and there is little understanding of how the center can survive at this stage. This spring, the center was exploring how to develop programmatic efforts in its Reach division, such as orchestral rehearsals, educational programs, and artistic performances through the Millennium Stage.
Yet the theater calendar in its main structure—three large theaters plus smaller spaces—is nearly empty. It is unclear how soon new seasons of the program may be placed to fill them. Or if the audience ever turns up in droves again.
