Kennedy Center to be renamed Trump-Kennedy Center, White House says

The board of the Kennedy Center has voted to rename the performing arts centre the Trump-Kennedy Center, according to the White House.

Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on social media that the board voted unanimously to make the change due to “the unbelievable work President Trump has done over the last year in saving the building”.

Leavitt also congratulated President John F. Kennedy and said “this will be a truly great team long into the future! The building will no doubt attain new levels of success and grandeur”.

The change will certainly meet controversy, particularly in Washington DC where the centre has been an iconic landmark since it was constructed and named for Kennedy.

Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump said he was “surprised” and “honoured” by the decision.

Shortly after taking office, President Donald Trump fired all the centre’s board members, and replaced them with allies, who then voted to make Trump chairman of the board. His close adviser Richard Grenell became board president.

Among those currently on the board are Attorney General Pam Bondi, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Second Lady Usha Vance, as well as a number of other administration officials. and political allies.

The president also secured about $257 million in congressional funding to pay for major renovations and other costs at the venue, where the Fifa World Cup draw was recently held.

“We saved it,” Trump said of the centre on Thursday. “It was really in bad shape, physically.”

The idea for a national performing arts centre began in the 1950s and after Kennedy, the 35th president, was assassinated in 1963, Congress passed a law to name it in his honour.

While Leavitt and Trump both claimed that the board had “unanimously” voted to rename the centre, at least one board member has disputed that.

“This was not unanimous,” said Ohio Democratic Representative Joyce Beatty, one of the board’s members. “I was muted on the call and not allowed to speak or voice my opposition to this move.”

Some US lawmakers and legal scholars were quick to note that because the name was decided in a 1964 law, Congress must vote to make the name change official – meaning that the board cannot do it unilaterally.

A measure to name the centre’s opera venue to the First Lady Melania Trump Opera House, for example, was introduced as part of a spending bill this summer. The bill has not yet come up for a vote.

That, however, does not necessarily prevent the centre from changing the centre’s name on its website or tickets, and potentially on the exterior of the building itself.

A similar name change took place at the Department of Defense – now known as the Department of War – without Congressional approval in September.

Trump’s involvement in the centre has been criticised by some political opponents as unnecessary political interference in the arts by the White House. Meanwhile, ticket sales and subscriptions for the variety of the performances at the centre have dropped off, according to an analysis by the Washington Post.

Earlier this year, the president said he was “98% involved” in the selection of this year’s Kennedy Center honourees, which included action star Sylvester Stallone and members of the rock band KISS.

At the time, Trump said that rejected “wokesters” being considered for the honour.

In June, during Trump’s first appearance at the Kennedy Center since returning to the White House in January, audience members both booed and cheered him and First Lady Melania Trump as they entered the presidential box.