Trump pledges overhaul of Kennedy Center in first visit as board chair

By Gram Slattery, Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump visited the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Monday for the first time since making himself its new chairman, threatening to shutter an expensive new addition and describing the marble Washington landmark as being in "tremendous disrepair."

Trump, who is juggling efforts to end Russia's war with Ukraine while also dismantling U.S. agencies and firing thousands of federal workers, presided over the center's board meeting in a demonstration of his takeover of an institution that has long enjoyed bipartisan support in Washington.

Trump, a former real estate executive, criticized an expansive addition built on the Kennedy Center complex for lacking windows and suggested closing it.

He said the center would improve physically over time, however, and he encouraged people to attend shows there.

"This represents a very important part of D.C., and actually our country," he said when asked why he was making time to come to the Kennedy Center with so many other things on his plate. "I think it's important to make sure that our country is in good shape and is represented well."

Last month Trump became chair of the Kennedy Center after pushing out billionaire philanthropist David Rubenstein. He fired its longtime president, Deborah Rutter, and installed his former ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, as interim president.

Before Monday's board meeting, portraits of Trump, his wife, Melania, Vice President JD Vance and his wife, Usha, were hung in the Kennedy Center's Hall of Nations. The institution is considered a living memorial to slain former President John F. Kennedy. Other presidents' portraits are not present.

Vance and his wife, who is now a member of the board, attended a recent performance at the Kennedy Center and were booed by the crowd, according to video that circulated on X.

Trump held the Monday meeting on the stage of the center's opera house with Grenell, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, Attorney General Pam Bondi and others in attendance.

"You can't have this looking like it does," he said, criticizing Rubenstein's stewardship. "I know the, the person who ... was in charge of it, and he's a good man. I never realized this was in such bad shape. I've been so busy I haven't been able to be here in a long time, and I shouldn't be with what I'm doing. But I thought it was important."

Trump declined to attend the annual Kennedy Center Honors performances during his first term in office and complained, when announcing plans to shake up the institution's board, about drag performances held there.

Some artists have canceled engagements because of the changes. The musical "Hamilton," which had been slated to stage its third run at the Washington landmark next year, pulled out. 

"The recent purge by the Trump Administration of both professional staff and performing arts events at or originally produced by the Kennedy Center flies in the face of everything this national cultural center represents," the show's producer, Jeffrey Seller, said in a statement on X.

Grenell called the decision "a publicity stunt that will backfire" and criticized the show's creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda.

"The Arts are for everyone - not just for the people who Lin likes and agrees with," Grenell said on X.

On Monday, Trump said he never liked "Hamilton" very much.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason and Gram Slattery in Washington; Additional reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, ConnecticutEditing by Colleen Jenkins and Matthew Lewis)