President Donald Trump threatened on September 15 to keep the Kennedy Center closed for good after a judge ruled his name cannot be added onto the famed arts institution's facade. Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty
President Trump’s mindset when it comes to the Kennedy Center is that of an authoritarian toddler: If he can’t have the toys he wants, he’ll try to break them and make sure no one else can have them, either.
Thousands of furious DC-area residents and Kennedy Center patrons gathered in front of the arts center last week in protest of the president’s threats to tear the building down if he’s not allowed to inscribe his own name on its exterior.
“This is a monument that was not falling down or bankrupt before he put his hands on it,” Robert White, an at-large member of the Council of the District of Columbia, said at the protest.
The Kennedy Center was suddenly shuttered last week, right after a judge ruled for the second time that the president’s name could not go on the building. The ruling prompted Trump to threaten to withhold the $270 million Congress has appropriated to renovate the popular arts center.
The president’s vanity projects have left monuments and parks across the city fenced off or closed. As my colleague Dan Friedman has reported:
- After spending $17.4 million to repair two fountains in Lafayette Park, the park itself is inaccessible because it’s surrounded by 13-foot steel fences.
- The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool remains fenced off because of algae blooms and peeling paint that occurred after the administration gave out a $15 million no-bid contract to renovate it for the country’s 250th anniversary.
- The White House suspended public tours due to the construction of Trump’s $900 million ballroom.
- The Ellipse, a park along the National Mall, has been fenced off since June, when Trump hosted a UFC Fight that damaged the park’s grass.
“The Trump administration should certainly have recognition,” the president said last week. “If we don’t do that…It’ll end up being ripped down.”
