Trump’s Kennedy Center Boss Accused of Being MIA from Six-Figure Job
Ric Grenell is overseeing the MAGA-fication of the D.C. venue.
Kent Nishimura/REUTERS
The man President Donald Trump installed to execute his hostile takeover of the Kennedy Center for the Arts has been accused of being absent from the job.
Ric Grenell, a former Trump ambassador to Germany and longtime Republican attack dog, is “only occasionally at the Kennedy Center,” a source told CBS News.
However, his alleged lack of presence at the Kennedy Center hasn’t stopped him from collecting a salary of $175,000, per tax records.
Richard Grenell (L) served as Ambassador to Germany, Envoy to Serbia and Kosovo, and acting Director of National Intelligence during Trump's first term.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
His salary is significantly less than that of the previous president, Deborah Rutter, who earned $1.3 million in 2023, before Trump fired her and replaced with Grenell.
While in charge of the Kennedy Center, Grenell is also serving in the State Department as a Special Presidential Envoy for Special Missions, a role that President Trump created for him.
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Grenell’s appointment came after Trump took the unprecedented step of installing himself as chairman in February.
In May, Grenell accused Rutter of concealing $26 million of “phantom revenue, fake revenue” and said that he would refer the center’s previous management to federal prosecutors for criminal investigation.
No such criminal investigation has been opened, but the Center has continued to attract attention and controversy.
In June, Trump and First Lady Melania Trump attended the Center’s opening night of Les Misérables, one of the president’s favorites (his favorite is Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Cats).
The couple was met with both boos and jeers from the crowd, including one woman who yelled “Convicted felon, rapist!” and was promptly escorted out by security.
Last month, two separate GOP bills proposed renaming the center after Melania Trump and President Trump, respectively.
That proposal drew a rebuke from President John F. Kennedy’s only grandson, Jack Schlossberg.
“JFK believed the arts made our country great and could be our most effective weapon in the fight for civil rights and against authoritarian governments around the world,” Schlossberg wrote on Instagram.
“The Trump Administration stands for freedom of oppression, not expression.”
Perhaps the most significant change to the center will come this August, with sources telling CBS News that the Kennedy Center Honors will be revamped.
The honorees at the 47th Annual Kennedy Center Honors in 2024, featuring honorees such as songwriter Bonnie Raitt, musician Arturo Sandoval, and the surviving members of the Grateful Dead.
CBS Photo Archive/CBS via Getty Images
The event typically takes place across multiple days and locations, honoring cultural giants such as Francis Ford Coppola, Rita Moreno, and Barbara Streisand.
The schedule for the Honors will be streamlined, rather than the typical panoply of events at the State Department, White House, and elsewhere.
Trump has not yet attended an Honors ceremony as president, skipping the ceremony four times during his first term.
Grenell and Roma Daravi, the spokesperson for the Kennedy Center who is a former Trump White House aide, did not respond to a request for comment. Daravi told CBS News of the changes to the Honors schedule, “If anything, it’s going to be more exciting.”
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