On Feb. 10, President Donald Trump fired 18 members of the Kennedy Center’s Board of Governors appointed by former President Joe Biden. He also fired Kennedy Center President Deborah Rutter, replacing her with his former Ambassador to Germany, Richard Grennel. Later that week, the newly conservative board voted to install Trump as the Chairman, ousting the billionaire philanthropist David Rubenstein.
Rutter had a proud but sobering message after her firing. She told NPR, “From the art on our stages to the students we have impacted in classrooms across America, everything we have done at the Kennedy Center has been about uplifting the human spirit in service of strengthening the culture of our great nation.” However, she expressed that she is “really, really, really sad about what happens to our artists, what happens on our stages and our staff who support them,” and reminded everyone that “the Kennedy Center is meant to be a beacon for the arts in all of America across the country.”
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington has historically been a nonpartisan institution. It was established during the administration of Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower and has maintained a tradition of having a board of directors with equal Democratic and Republican representation. However, Trump broke that tradition, filling the board with country star Lee Greenwood, Second Lady Usha Vance and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.
In a statement, Trump claimed that his actions were an attempt to “make the Kennedy Center great again” and realize a “Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture” in America. Such a vision does not include drag shows and other forms of cultural expression that Trump has deemed unfit and cited in part as reasons for his overhaul of the Center.
These drastic changes have caused several scheduled performers to cancel their gigs. These include actor Issa Rae and singer Rhiannon Giddens. Giddens was willing to perform at what she described as “previously [a] non-political institution,” but in light of the recent events, she decided to bring her talents elsewhere in Washington. Meanwhile, other scheduled performers opted to go on with their shows. Comedian W. Kamau Bell remarked that as “the exact kind of performer [Trump] doesn’t want in there … this is the most important time to do my gig,” which occurred the day after Trump’s drastic actions. Bell then used much of his performance to critique the changes and express his support for his counterparts who canceled their shows, like Rae.
The fallout has extended well beyond the Kennedy Center’s performers. Since Trump’s announcement, ticket sales have dropped 50% due to growing dissatisfaction with the Center’s leadership. Such a drop could have massive consequences for the Kennedy Center financially, which made $225 million of its $268 million budget in 2024 from ticket sales.
Some who have canceled subscriptions have made grim comparisons. One Kennedy Center member, who chose to remain anonymous, likened Trump’s actions to a “purge” of American culture and described the oppressive and growing “climate of fear at art institutions.”
Trump’s actions could be farther-reaching than one might expect at first glance, and some have drawn comparisons between the president’s attempt to control America’s arts and similar attempts to do so by authoritarian regimes like the Nazis. Elisabeth Braw, an opinion columnist for Foreign Affairs, notes that the German government’s attempt to control its country’s culture starting in the 1930s eventually resulted in book bannings, the exiling of artists and poets and overall censorship of free speech and free expression, which left German society constrained, repressed and desolate. Braw also likened Trump’s takeover to Venezuela, a modern-day dictatorship that exercises significant government control over the arts. Despite giving the disclaimer of not intending to sound too “alarmist,” Brau voiced serious concerns about Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center and what it could mean for the future of American society.
