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- [00:01]
A
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- [00:45]
B
Hi, I'm Ben Parker from the Bulwark, joined by culture editor Sonny Bunch, because we're going to talk again about the Kennedy center, which Trump decided to rename after himself and then take over and then shut down. And it has just been unshut down by a federal judge who says in a very long opinion that just dropped on this Friday afternoon. You can't do that. You can't just shut it down. You can't just take it over. You can't just slap your name on it because guess what? There are laws, Sonny. It's good news, right? Good news. We like good news.
- [01:15]
C
Yeah, it's like the old Schoolhouse Rock video with the little sad little bill. And he's like, how do I become a law? And in today's America, Donald Trump just says something and it happens, and then a court, no, you can't do that. And then it doesn't happen. It's amazing the system that we have. This ruling covers several different things that Donald Trump was basically Donald Trump, let's be honest, is doing this. It's, there's a board, there's technically a board. There's, there are people in charge who aren't Donald Trump, but he's the one who's kind of forcing all this through the big one. And I think this is actually the most important of them. Set aside the, like, shutting down the Kennedy center to renovate it because there's some debate over how many renovations it needs and, you know, blah, blah, blah, and who has the authority to do it. Even, you know, theoretically, the board could shut it down for two, two years to do the renovations. But the judge says the board actually has to be consulted about this. You can't just rush it through. There has to be, like, actual thoughts.
- [02:12]
B
And you can't just kick off members of the board because you don't like them. Like, the people on the board are on the board. You can't just say they're not on
- [02:17]
C
the board because right, right there and there yeah, there was some debate over. Well, these are, you know, not really members of the board. They're kind of ex. Nilo. Whatever. Whatever the legal term is. I'm not a lawyer. I'm not a. I didn't go to. I didn. I didn't go to law school to talk about movies. I went to movie school to talk about movies. The real, I think, important thing here is that the judge ordered one very specific thing to be done, and that is for Donald Trump's name to stop being used as the name of the Kennedy Center. If you go to the Kennedy center now, there is in slightly off font and slightly off kerning, a kerning, which is for those who aren't in the newspaper industry.
- [02:55]
B
Sonny, I hate to tell you, no one is in the newspaper industry anymore.
- [02:58]
C
Well, okay, the writing industry, the publishing. Oh, God, that's even worse. Kerning is the amount of space between letters and words, but it's all wrong. But if you go and look at the building, it has this wrong font and wrong size.
- [03:12]
B
It says the John F. Kennedy center for the Performing Arts. And then it looks like someone Photoshopped above it slightly wrong Donald Trump.
- [03:20]
C
And it literally looks like somebody did a bad Photoshop job in person. I went there in person. I wrote a piece for us. Looking at the signage, I was like, that's not quite right. That's. That's actually, I think I sent it to our art designer at the time, Hannah Yost. The great Hannah Yost. And she. She, like, I thought she was gonna have a stroke when she. When she saw it. But the judge said, you cannot. You cannot call it this. You cannot call it the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Center. That. That's not allowed because there are laws. There actually was a law that established the funding for the Kennedy center. And it. It said that it is for. It is for the memorial of the president who was slain, John F. Kennedy, not Donald J. Trump. So the. The issue here, I think this. I think that judge is on a very strong legal footing here. I mean, I don't. Again, I'm not a lawyer. I haven't parsed through this ruling bit by bit. Maybe the. Maybe the plan shutdown goes through anyway after the board looks at it and, you know, decides that they have to cover up the real problem, which is that they can't book any acts.
- [04:27]
B
Well, yeah, this is going to be my question. Like, they. So the problem was all these acts, like Hamilton and all these performers, they would have come through, pulled out the Washington National Opera, relocated to. I Think George Washington University, even though they've been at the Kennedy center for decades. And so they were doing, oh, well, now we're going to shut down for two years for renovations. It was pretty clearly because they couldn't fill seats. But now, like, we're already halfway through 2026. The 2026, 2027 season for performances is coming up really soon. Are they going to be able to reopen? How are they going to schedule things so fast and sell tickets?
- [05:02]
C
That's a great question, Ben. That's a great question. And look, as we've seen, the Trump administration is great at programming, concerts. Look at this 250th anniversary, this 250th birthday party that we've got planned. The Great American State Fair, where we had wonderful acts like Milli Vanilli and cnc, Music Factory and Vanilla Ice and Morse. Day in the Time, no Shade on More Stay in the time, Martina McBride, et cetera. And they, like, all backed out. They were like, wait, we didn't realize that this was the Trump thing. This. We thought we were just going to another state fair. You know, this was. This is not what we were. We were signing up for. I don't know how they're going to book all of these shows. I don't know how they're going to fill the space and the time. But I did have an. I did have a great idea for a fundraiser. If the Kennedy center needs to raise some money, which it does. They do need money. That's a thing that the Kennedy center always needs. We could talk about one of the shady ways they were trying to raise it in a second. But if you just set up a bunch of risers on in front of the building, you just set up some stands, and you charge the folks who live in D.C. and Northern Virginia and Southern Maryland, like, 20 bucks a ticket to come and watch them pull the Trump signage off of the Kennedy Center. You could raise a million bucks. You could raise a million bucks. It'd be easy. I like. That's easy money. You charge them 10 bucks for a glass of crappy white wine, and they're there. Man, you could raise so much money doing this. It would be. It would be. It's. That's just money in the bag. People hated. People hated putting Donald Trump's name on the building. And this is the thing, right? Like, it's this weird compulsion to force Trump into everything, to force his name on everything, to force his presence on everything, to, you know, his. His ideal really is not to be president. It's to be a host on HGTV. He just wants to redecorate D.C. and like, I feel like that's a fair trade. I've joked about this before, but I really feel like it's a fair trade. If we gave Donald Trump remake DC on HGTV and asked him to stop being president, I think there's like a 60% chance he would take it. And, you know, that's a win, win for everyone. Right?
- [07:07]
B
It would have to be a. You get to remake the nation's capital and not go to jail. That's the important part.
- [07:13]
C
Well, I don't know if we can make that deal. That, that might be a bridge too far.
- [07:17]
B
Yeah, that one might be tough. I do think you could sell tickets. I also, I think this judge in the ruling gave them a time frame. It's like two weeks. They have to take down the name. It was pretty fast. I assume that they're going to appeal. That's going to get stayed. Is that actually going to happen? But if the timing works out just right, I did see that the next no Kings rallies are scheduled for June 14, which is Trump's birthday, and those are always pretty big in D.C. so you could have people at the Kennedy center for the no Kings protests on Trump's birthday when they're taking his name off the Kennedy center and you know, maybe throw in the US Institute of Peace and some other stuff at the same time. Like while you're calling the guys out who are taking the letters off, like just have them do the whole city. Right. Why call them out multiple times?
- [07:58]
C
You could do like one of those bus tours, like one of those open top bus tours that, that you take. You know, you go from, you go from site to site. You have like party buses. I'm telling you, man, this is a business opportunity that we are missing out on here. We should really have the Bulwark Party Bus Anti Trump Sign Removal Party. I feel like this is a, this is, we're, we're, we're leaving money on the table here.
- [08:20]
B
Yeah. We're about to put out our multimillion dollar idea just on YouTube and people are going to steal it. What was your, what was the way they were, they were sketchily raising money. What was that about?
- [08:29]
C
Oh, so I talked to Joseph Palermo, who was, he was, he was working at the Kennedy Center. He went to work at the Kennedy center after Trump's election. He was working to basically do art installations there. And he wrote a big piece for the Atlantic talking about the crazy things he saw them do there. Like, for instance, was these lounges that were basically going to be auctioned off. And here's. I just want to read from his. His story, because it really gets a sense of how ridiculous all of this was. This all happened under Rick Renell's watch, who was in charge of, you know, booking everything at the Kennedy center, and failed terribly. He failed so badly that Trump eventually had to fire him. He's like, you can't do this.
- [09:14]
B
He failed so badly that Trump fired a man.
- [09:17]
C
Can you imagine how badly you would have to be. How badly you would have to do your job for that to happen? All right, so here is. Here's Joseph. Last fall, I organized an exhibition commemorating the anniversary of the October 7 Hamas attacks in the Israeli Lounge, featuring the paintings of an American Israeli artist. Speaking at the opening reception, Grinnell warned the mostly Jewish audience that unless donors came forward to sponsor the space and pay for renovation costs, the lounge would be given away to a new donor. It certainly would be a shame if we lost this room to a corporation or an individual and it was no longer the Israeli Lounge, he said. Such a strong, armed fundraising pitch at an event commemorating a pogrom struck many of us in the room as inappropriate. I was mortified, end quote. I am also mortified secondhand months after the fact, because that is just. I like. It's. It's gauche is what it is. It's just gauche. Like, you don't. You shouldn't do that. And that's. And that is. That's the. The Trump era gaucheness. It's just gold leaf on everything. Sorry, Tim. I know you love the gold leaf, but gold leaf on everything. And. And. And. Don't yell at me, Tim. I'm sorry.
- [10:24]
B
Real quick, getting back to this quote. Was he telling a bunch of, like, Jewish Americans who came to see this exhibit that, like, they had to pony up to keep it? The Israel Lounge?
- [10:35]
C
Somebody's got to. Somebody. Somebody's got to pony up the money,
- [10:38]
B
you know, but not like the government of Israel. Like, I don't.
- [10:41]
C
You know, I know. Who's to say where the money can come from, Ben, you know, just pay up. You just got to pay up. If you don't pay your protection, you lose your protection. Right? That's how this works. I mean, it's pretty straightforward.
- [10:54]
B
One of the things you wrote about in February is that you spent basically a whole day at the Kennedy Center. You saw three performances. One of them was at the Millennium Stage, which is just a free daily concert. You just kind of reserve a ticket and show up. And it's a jazz group or it's someone doing a poetry reading, or it's improv or whatever it is on that day. And every time I've been to the Kennedy center, which I love, uh, you know, you always see people just, like, there's, like, a lot of, like, school trips go and, like, see a free performance of some kind. There's, like, kids hanging out, people watching it, and it's great. And, you know, I really hope that they keep doing that, because it is a free performance for people. And the whole reason that the Kennedy center exists is that, you know, D.C. is the capital of the country, and there wasn't a lot of culture here before. It's gotten better than it was, you know, in the 60s. But it's a lovely thing, and I hope. I hope this judge's ruling actually does make it reopen, because it would be lovely to have it back, and it would be lovely, lovely to have it not be part of the sort of Trumpian attempt to make everything American about Trump, which is really just kind of annoying and disgusting.
- [11:53]
C
This really is the bottom line is that, like, having the space open to the public and having it be a space that is not a partisan political thing is good. It's just an objective capital G. Good. That's a good thing to have, where you can just have this kind of communal art space. People can go and enjoy it. Grinnell kept making the argument that, oh, these artists don't want to perform for, you know, the. The sorts of Americans who are working here now. You know, they don't want to perform for conservatives. And, like, that's such crap. That's such crap. Because this space has always been open for everybody. It's always been the. The sort of place that anybody can go to. Yes, it's probably. Mostly. It's probably more liberal, more Democratic, but that's just because that's who lives and works in D.C. for the most part. They never. They never had this problem. They never had this problem during the last Trump administration. Right? Like the last Trump administration, a number of the acts who performed, who pulled out of performances this time around after either before the renaming of the building or after the renaming of the building, performed the first time around. Hamilton played at the Kennedy center during Trump's first term. You know, the. The. The jazz musicians played, the. The opera was there. So, like, everything that they are doing now, they are obviously doing something much more aggressive this time around that has made it worse for the performers. And it has made it more untenable for them to perform there. And you say, like, oh, well, you know, it's just a name. You, you, you, you don't want to see this, this great institution be destroyed because that gives Trump what he wants. I've seen people make this argument and like, I'm sorry, if I'm an artist, if I'm an artist, if I express myself through my paintings or my music or my acting, I do not want that affiliated and associated with Donald Trump. Even if it's just a name. Even if it is, you know, not meaningful. Even if it's just a nickname. That's what they tried to say because they, because legally they can't change it. Right?
- [13:46]
B
Like the Department of Defense.
- [13:48]
C
Yeah, exactly. It's not, it's not actually technically the Department of War. It's still the Department of Defense. We just, everybody calls it the Department of War and we put Department of War on all this stuff. All the, all the Kennedy center emails now say Trump Kennedy Center. You know, the front of the building says Trump Kennedy Center. Like it. It's. You. You can't just say, this is a nickname. You have renamed it. And that's against the law. And that's why, again, this is like, set aside the reconstruction stuff. That is a different. That's a separate issue involving logistics and all that. The naming of the building itself, the renaming of the building itself was so obviously illegal that I'm glad a judge came in and said, no, you can't do this. Don't do dumb, illegal things just to make Donald Trump feel better about himself.
- [14:29]
B
Thanks, Sunny. This is fun. I feel better about this now.
- [14:32]
C
Good, good.
- [14:33]
B
We don't often get to talk about good news, but, you know, it's nice when we do. That's why we do this. And, you know, if you want to follow more of the news, most of it bad, sometimes some of it's kind of good, like this video. Subscribe to the channel and go to thebullwerk.com become a bulwark plus member. And if we do end up doing a Bulwark Bus Tour vc where we tear Trump's name off of all the things he's put it on. It's going to be Bulwark Bus members who we invite. So that's one additional reason to become a member.
- [14:59]
C
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D
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C
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D
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C
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D
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C
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D
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