President Donald Trump trashed the Kennedy Center in Washington during a White House dinner Monday night with his handpicked board members.
The president remarked that the performing arts center was in a state of significant disrepair and proceeded to criticize some of the previous ‘DEI’ initiatives.
In early February, Trump dismissed the board of trustees at the Kennedy Center and appointed himself as chair, selecting Richard Grenell, his former acting director of national intelligence, as the Kennedy Center’s executive director.
Speaking Monday evening in the State Dining Room, Trump acknowledged that when he assumed control of the Kennedy Center, ‘I hadn’t been there.’
‘It’s the last time I’ll take a job without looking at it,’ the president cracked.
What particularly irked Trump wasn’t the original structure – built between 1966 and 1971 and opened that year – but the arts center’s new backyard addition, The Reach.
‘I always thought they should have built a beautiful performing center, open air, facing out over the Potomac. They didn’t do that. They built these crazy rooms underneath. They built three tiny little stages. Very expensive,’ Trump said.
‘Someday maybe somebody will occupy one,’ he said.
Trump said when he originally looked at one of the entryways to the Kennedy Center’s modern addition, he got very confused.
‘They’re underground,’ he explained. ‘In fact, when I looked from a distance, you know, you see these hubs, concrete hubs, and I thought it was modern art. Here we go with the modern art blocking everybody’s view.’
‘And when I actually went over there, I said, no it wasn’t modern art, it was meant to be a door so you go down to these rooms,’ he continued.
‘So I don’t now what the hell they were doing but they spent a lot of money and it’s just not possible that they could have spent it so poorly,’ the president complained.
He was he was going to ‘turn it around.’
‘I love turning things around,’ Trump said. ‘I’m doing that with the country, believe me, we’re doing it.’
The president also complained that the Kennedy Center had LGBTQ-inclusive programming.
Kennedy Center events for the upcoming World Pride celebration in June have already been scrapped.
‘In addition the programming was out of control, with rampant political propaganda, DEI and inappropriate shows,’ Trump said. ‘We had some very inappropriate shows to put it, I think, to put it very nicely.’
‘They had dance parties for quote “queer and trans youth.” And I guess that’s all right for certain people, quote, and I’m just quoting, I’m not saying it “queer and trans youth.” That wasn’t working out too well,’ Trump insisted.
‘They had a Marxist anti-police performance and they had lesbian-only Shakespeare, which is never – who thinks of these ideas, really?’ Trump asked. ‘It’s different.’
‘We’re bringing our country back so fast,’ he added.
Ahead of the Monday night dinner, the Kennedy Center announced that its upcoming lineup would include Chicago, Moulin Rouge and Back to the Future: The Musical.
Trump suggested Phantom of the Opera would also be added to the line-up.
‘So we’re signing Phantom of the Opera. We’re signing a lot of great Broadway. We’ll have them run for awhile,’ he said.
‘I think you’re going to do very well but it’s been neglected very badly, and it needs an infusion of different things, probably funds,’ he continued. ‘But I think we’re going to do very well when you get some money from Congress to fix it.’
Seated in the audience were White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, who Trump appointed to the board.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio was also there and gave brief remarks.
Trump said hello to Steve Wynn, the casino magnate, whose wife Andrea was appointed to the board, and Robert Kraft, the New England Patriots owner whose wife Dana Blumberg, is also among the new faces.
The president also appointed Fox News host Laura Ingraham to the board, as well as second lady Usha Vance, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Paolo Zampolli, the modeling agent who discovered first lady Melania Trump in the 1990s.
Singer Lee Greenwood, who appeared last week in Qatar with Trump to sing to the troops, is also a member of the Kennedy Center board.
