Trump Says Kennedy Center Will Close for Two Years

Last night, President Donald Trump announced via his social media platform, Truth Social, that the Kennedy Center would close its doors on July 4, coinciding with the the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The Washington DC performing arts venue would remain closed for two years while undergoing a major renovation, with a grand reopening to take place presumably before the president leaves office in January 2029.

“If we don’t close, the quality of Construction will not be nearly as good,” he wrote, “and the time to completion, because of interruptions with Audiences from the many Events using the Facility, will be much longer.” He qualified that the decision to close was, “totally subject to Board approval.”

But it seems unlikely that the current slate of Kennedy Center trustees would go against the president’s decision. Last February, after Trump purged the board of Biden appointees, the board unanimously elected Trump chairman. That same board voted in December to rename the venue the “Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.” And while such a renaming legally requires an act of Congress, that did not stop the board from changing the signage on the building.

In response to the major changes at the Kennedy Center and the policies of the Trump administration, multiple artists have canceled engagements at the venue, the latest being composer Philip Glass, who was scheduled to debut his symphony honoring Abraham Lincoln. “The values of Kennedy Center today are in direct conflict with the message of the symphony,” Glass wrote in an open letter to leadership at the National Symphony Orchestra.

An extended period of closure would spare the Kennedy Center any more embarrassing cancelations or reports of depressed ticket sales for much of the remainder of the second Trump administration. The renovation would also leave the president’s stamp on the building, which, in his typically superlative style, he promises will be, “the finest performing arts facility of its kind, anywhere in the world.”

Should the Kennedy Center close on Independence Day, the final performance of a Broadway musical at the opera house will be Moulin Rouge!