CURTAIN CALL

Trump Issues Wild Kennedy Center Warning as His Goons Order Closure

The hits keep coming for the venerated cultural institution.

President Donald Trump issued a thinly veiled warning to a federal appellate court as the Kennedy Center board voted to shutter the storied arts institution.

The board decided on Tuesday to close down the Washington, D.C., performing arts center “for Safety reasons, and so that it can begin the process of Reconstruction,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

The president said the closure will take effect “immediately,” though renovations cannot begin until the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rules on whether Trump can slap his name onto the facade of the Kennedy Center.

“If the ruling is a negative one, which it should not be, and is not overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Reconstruction and the Renovation of The Kennedy Center will not take place,” Trump wrote. “The attorneys from the DOJ will ask for an expedited appeal.”

The closure vote followed a scathing ruling by U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper that prevented the Kennedy Center board from plastering Trump’s name on the exterior.

“Simply put, defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’s blessing,” he wrote. “The board resolution bucks a federal court order and a statute Congress enacted.”

A preliminary injunction previously issued by Cooper, of the D.C. Circuit, prevents the board from shutting down the Kennedy Center despite the Tuesday vote.

The board argued that a partial ceiling collapse in the Kennedy Center’s Grand Foyer merited an immediate closure for repairs. In a draft resolution, the board said a construction consultant and Director Matt Floca “consider the main building to be unsafe for continued occupancy, and anticipate further risk to the public and employees if the building is not immediately closed and renovations begun.”

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Trump threw a fresh Truth Social rampage over the center.

“The Kennedy Center is in a virtual state of collapse, and has been for many years. A large piece of concrete and steel just dropped down, in a thud, from the ceiling of a heavily trafficked main hallway,” he wrote. “If the Building were open, innocent people would have been killed. A security guard had just passed the area, one minute prior to this ceiling collapse. He was, therefore, 60 seconds away from certain death.”

The Kennedy Center board, which is chaired by Trump himself, is stacked with the president’s loyalists, including White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, her deputy Dan Scavino, and former Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Other prominent MAGAworld figures on the board include former Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, star anchor Laura Ingraham, and Paolo Zampolli, the Italian-American businessman credited with introducing Trump to first lady Melania.

Several Trump administration officials, including State Secretary Marco Rubio, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Education Secretary Linda McMahon, are ex officio members designated by an act of Congress.

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But not all board members have allegiance to Trump. Rep. Joyce Beatty, Democrat of Ohio, has been one of the most outspoken critics of the Kennedy Center’s MAGA makeover.

Beatty previously filed a lawsuit seeking to block Trump from shutting down the Kennedy Center.

“Donald Trump only cares about the Kennedy Center for his vanity,” Beatty said in a statement on Tuesday. “That is wrong and it is a breach of his fiduciary duty as a trustee. Congress established the Kennedy Center as a living memorial to President Kennedy, and I am proud to defend this cherished institution.”

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