The Trumpy board of the Kennedy Center has voted to shutter the storied arts institution after a fresh blow in court.
The board decided on Tuesday to close down the Washington, D.C., performing arts center, citing its “dire” financial and structural condition, sources told NBC News. The vote came shortly after a federal judge once again blocked President Donald Trump’s bid to put his name on the Kennedy Center facade.
However, a preliminary injunction previously issued by U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper prevents the board from actually shutting down the Kennedy Center despite the Tuesday vote.
The board argued that a partial ceiling collapse in the Kennedy Center’s Grand Foyer merited an immediate closure for repairs. In a draft resolution, the board said a construction consultant and Director Matt Floca “consider the main building to be unsafe for continued occupancy, and anticipate further risk to the public and employees if the building is not immediately closed and renovations begun.”
The vote followed Cooper’s scathing ruling that prevented the Kennedy Center board from plastering Trump’s name on the exterior.
“Simply put, defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’s blessing,” he wrote. “The board resolution bucks a federal court order and a statute Congress enacted.”
Trump threw a fresh Truth Social rampage over the center.
“The Kennedy Center is in a virtual state of collapse, and has been for many years. A large piece of concrete and steel just dropped down, in a thud, from the ceiling of a heavily trafficked main hallway,” he wrote. “If the Building were open, innocent people would have been killed. A security guard had just passed the area, one minute prior to this ceiling collapse. He was, therefore, 60 seconds away from certain death.”
The Kennedy Center board, which is chaired by Trump himself, is stacked with the president’s loyalists, including White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, her deputy Dan Scavino, and former Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Other prominent MAGAworld figures on the board include former Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, star anchor Laura Ingraham, and Paolo Zampolli, the Italian-American businessman credited with introducing Trump to first lady Melania.
Several Trump administration officials, including State Secretary Marco Rubio, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Education Secretary Linda McMahon, are ex officio members designated by an act of Congress.
But not all board members have allegiance to Trump. Rep. Joyce Beatty, Democrat of Ohio, has been one of the most outspoken critics of the Kennedy Center’s MAGA makeover.
Beatty previously filed a lawsuit seeking to block Trump from shutting down the Kennedy Center.
“President Trump’s actions have been lawless,” she said in an earlier statement. “The stakes could not be higher. I am asking the court to prevent President Trump from doing to the Kennedy Center what he did to the East Wing of the White House, just a few months ago.”
