Trump Awards Himself Tasteless Kennedy Center Christmas Gift
The president is wrecking yet another Washington institution.
Priorities, priorities.
The iconic Kennedy Center is being renamed the “Trump-Kennedy Center,” the White House announced Thursday.
The John F. Kennedy Center's new board, for some reason, now includes MAGA figures such as Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and Attorney General Pam Bondi.
JIM WATSON/Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt posted to X that the venue’s hand-picked board, now packed with MAGA loyalists, decided to honor President Donald Trump because of “the unbelievable work” he has done over the last year in “saving the building” and its “reputation.”
She continued, “Congratulations to President Donald J. Trump, and likewise, congratulations to President Kennedy, because this will be a truly great team long into the future! The building will no doubt attain new levels of success and grandeur.”
President Donald Trump toured the Kennedy Center in March and has since demanded it be renovated to his liking.
JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images
Trump, 79, was elected chairman of the board in February and has since packed it with top allies.
A source told CNN that Trump phoned in to Thursday’s meeting ahead of the vote.
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The network also reported that the vote was not unanimous in favor of the change. Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty, an ex-officio member of the board, reportedly attempted to object to the vote but was muted.
The board includes White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles; Attorney General Pam Bondi; second lady Usha Vance; Deputy White House Chief of Staff Dan Scavino; and Allison Lutnick, the wife of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
The center’s name change is not totally out of left field.
Trump has flirted with the idea for weeks and apparently ordered his sycophants on the board to deliver it to him as an early Christmas gift. This comes amid a particularly messy week in the West Wing, which included Wiles spilling numerous secrets about the administration in a Vanity Fair report.
Pressed about naming an iconic venue after himself, a common theme of MAGA 2.0, the president insisted on December 7 that a renaming would have to come from the board—not him.
“I hear that, but I don’t know,” he said about a future renaming. “And that’s not up to me, that’s up to the board. The board makes that decision. We have a very prestigious board. If you look at the names—I don’t think there is a board like it.”
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