Trump’s Kennedy Center sabotage is complete

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: President Donald Trump can’t put his name on the Kennedy Center — so he’s closing it, effective immediately. 

What’s happening? On Tuesday, the board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts voted to close the building indefinitely, shortly after a federal judge rebuked efforts to engrave Trump’s name into the facade.

According to the board, the closure is because the center is in bad financial shape and the building itself is in a dangerous state of disrepair. Without Trump’s support, they claim, a renovation will be impossible — and Trump has made clear he won’t support it unless his name is on the building, even though Congress already approved $257 million for the project last year.

How did we get here? Trump has been obsessed with claiming the Kennedy Center — a memorial for an assassinated president — and its cultural cachet for himself ever since he returned to office last year. He quickly stacked the Kennedy Center board with his appointees, then installed himself as chair. 

In December, he had his name added to the building’s facade and its official title, temporarily making it the Trump-Kennedy Center. A federal judge ordered him to undo the renaming in June, and the administration complied — but the facade has remained covered since then, obscuring the removal.

In August, Trump also threatened the center with demolition if he didn’t get his way; he sounded a similar note in a Truth Social post Tuesday, writing that “the Building is destined to doom.” 

What’s the context? Trump and his handpicked board have both portrayed the Kennedy Center as a destitute, derelict institution in need of rescue. In reality, the Washington Post reported last month, he’s done his fair share to drive it into the ground: Ticket sales and fundraising both plummeted after his December renaming, resulting in a nearly $100 million shortfall. 

What’s the big picture? The Kennedy Center was doing just fine before Trump returned to office. Now, its doors will close because he can’t turn it into a monument to himself.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

I loved this recent episode from my colleagues over at Vox’s Unexplainable podcast, who went looking for the oldest story ever told — with some help from an astrophysicist and a cognitive anthropologist. You can listen here, or you can now find Unexplainable on Netflix. 

As always, thanks for reading, have a great evening, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!