Kennedy Center staffers were blindsided by President Donald Trump’s abrupt announcement that he is closing the iconic venue for two years to renovate it.
Staff learned of the closure, scheduled to begin on July 4, from the president’s rambling Truth Social post on Sunday evening, according to multiple reports, including CNN.
It remains unclear how many staff members, if any, the center will continue to employ during its closure. Kennedy Center President Richard Grenell told the team in an email Sunday night that “we will have more information about staffing and operational changes in the coming days,” according to The Washington Post.
A 2024 job posting shared by the Kennedy Center said it employs “approximately 2,500 individuals, including administrative, union, and federal staff.” WTOP reported last year that the Kennedy Center had an annual operating budget of $268 million, with $43 million of that coming from federal funding.
The Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to questions emailed by the Daily Beast.
Trump, 79, said a desperate need for upgrades—not plummeting ticket sales and a rash of artist cancellations since his takeover of the Kennedy Center board—meant a full closure was necessary.
The president bizarrely claimed the venue, which he proudly slapped his own name on in December, is “dilapidated” in its current state.
“This important decision, based on input from many Highly Respected Experts, will take a tired, broken, and dilapidated Center, one that has been in bad condition, both financially and structurally for many years, and turn it into a World Class Bastion of Arts, Music, and Entertainment, far better than it has ever been before,” Trump wrote.
Critics are not so sure that the building’s appearance is the reason guests and artists are avoiding the Kennedy Center.
David Axelrod, who served as chief strategy advisor to both of Obama’s presidential campaigns and then as a top aide in the Obama White House, wrote on X, “It’s not the decor that has driven performers away. It’s the decorator.”
Former GOP Rep. Barbara Comstock agreed, saying Trump would “rather close it than admit his vanity project was rejected by the American people.”
Trump said the two-year closure must be approved by the Center’s board. Such an approval is likely to be merely a formality, as Trump has already overhauled its leadership structure, stuffing its board with sycophants like Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Attorney General Pam Bondi, and crowning himself its chair.
Grenell, another Trump appointee, is doing the president’s bidding from inside the Center, too.
“Our goal has always been to not only save and permanently preserve the Center, but to make it the finest Arts Institution in the world,” he wrote on X. “It desperately needs this renovation and temporarily closing the Center just makes sense—it will enable us to better invest our resources, think bigger, and make the historic renovations more comprehensive. It also means we will be finished faster.”
Grenell, in true MAGA fashion, could not complete his post without a shameless suck-up to Trump.
He added, “President Trump has a reputation for delivering large construction projects on time, under budget, and beautifully finished. This will be a brief closure in retrospect—and I am confident this sets the stage for a stronger, revitalized National Cultural and Entertainment Complex.”
