The John F Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., is facing “certain fiscal collapse” in a matter of weeks if President Donald Trump’s name is not restored to the front of the building, according to its leadership.
The New York Times and Washington Post both cite a 57-page draft resolution circulated to the venue’s board of trustees, which is chaired by Trump himself, ahead of a special meeting Tuesday, which warns it is facing bankruptcy and may soon be unable to pay staff or honor routine maintenance contracts.
The resolution reportedly reveals that the president has offered to help to raise the money needed to keep the institution open on the condition that he receives the “appropriate recognition” for doing so.
It then offers the trustees a choice of 10 inscriptions that might be added beneath the building’s name, one representative example of which reads: “Renovation Restoration and Endowment overseen by President Donald J Trump and the Trump Kennedy Center Fund.”
Norm Eisen and Nathaniel Zelinsky, lawyers for Ohio Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty, who is leading the opposition to Trump’s rebranding, told the Post: “This constant effort to add Donald Trump’s name to the Kennedy Center facade is the definition of insanity.
open image in gallery“This is now the third attempt to deface this sacred memorial and turn it into a vanity project for one man’s ego. Worse still, now Trump is taking the Center hostage and threatening to in effect kill it unless he gets his way. This has to stop.”
Trump first added his name to the Kennedy Center, which honors the assassinated 35th president, in December last year, leading to a sharp decline in ticket sales for its events and artists pulling out of scheduled engagements on political grounds.
In May, Washington, D.C., District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled that Congress had made it “crystal clear” the venue was only intended to memorialize Kennedy and “cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial” based on a “unilateral say-so.”
Cooper gave the center until June 12 to strip the current president’s name from its exterior but construction crews only started to assemble scaffolding to reach the letters that afternoon. Trump’s name plates were not removed until the early hours of the following morning.
Amid the ongoing legal wrangling, the Department of Justice has repeatedly warned the venue faces “financial ruin” unless his name remains in place.
“Many donors and companies, who have given, or will be giving, millions of dollars to the Center were only willing to do so with the name ‘Trump’ on the Building,” its lawyers wrote in one filing earlier this summer.
“Without the name ‘Trump’ on the Building, our fundraising will not only come to a halt, but any and all monies raised or committed would be obligated to be returned, refunded, or terminated.”
open image in galleryThe center’s board then voted on August 13 to reinstate Trump’s name and to close down for a two-year renovation, costing at least $250 million, which is not currently slated to happen until October 8, a month later than first planned.
The DOJ has also said the venue might have to be torn down altogether if a solution cannot be found to the controversy surrounding the president’s involvement.
Earlier this month, heavy rainfall caused a section of ceiling plaster to fall 60 feet into the building’s Grand Foyer, the debris landing near its Concert Hall entrance.
Fortunately, no one was hurt but the accident only reinforced calls for the center’s redevelopment in accordance with Trump’s wishes.
The Independent reached out to the Kennedy Center for comment and was directed to a previous statement by Roma Daravi, the center’s vice president of public relations, who called the ceiling incident: “Another example of the urgent need to close for renovation and revitalization, as our Chairman President Trump has championed.
“This structural failure stems from decades of neglect and deferred maintenance by the previous leadership, and there’s no justification for further delays in restoring America’s cultural center.”
A spokesperson also indicated the current board had inherited its problems as a consequence of its predecessor’s “financial mismanagement and falsified budget,“ blaming the ticket sale decline on broader industry trends.
The Independent also reached to the White House for comment.