President Donald Trump announced Sunday the Kennedy Center will close for two years in July as the center undergoes renovations.
Trump in a Truth Social post Sunday night said he determined the best way to bring the center to the “highest level of success” is to close it for two years starting July 4, though he noted the decision requires approval from the center’s board of trustees, which he chairs and filled with his family and administration officials. The move comes after the board voted to rename the center the Trump-Kennedy Center in December and as several performers have pulled out of their scheduled performances at the venue to boycott Trump’s overhaul.
“I have determined that the Trump-Kennedy Center, if temporarily closed for Construction, Revitalization, and Complete Rebuilding, can be, without question, the finest Performing Arts Facility of its kind, anywhere in the World,” Trump said in the post.
The White House and the Kennedy Center did not immediately return a request for comment.
Trump fired Chair David Rubenstein and multiple other board members last February because they did not share the same “vision for a golden age in arts and culture.” He has since appointed media figures, like Laura Ingraham, and supporters of his administration, like White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, to the board.
In the Sunday announcement, Trump said the center will close in honor of the country’s 250th anniversary, and the administration will simultaneously begin construction on a “new and spectacular Entertainment Complex.” He said the decision was based on input from “highly respected experts” as well as contractors, musical experts and art institutions.
The center — which Trump referred to in the post as “tired, broken and dilapidated” — has faced plummeting ticket sales since Trump’s takeover, with 43 percent of tickets remaining unsold for the typical production as of October, according to an analysis from the Washington Post. Artists like Issa Rae, Shonda Rhimes, Ben Folds and the production of Hamilton have canceled their performances to protest Trump’s interference with the center.
