Bulwark Takes Episode Summary

Podcast: Bulwark Takes
Episode: Trump Slaps His Name on the Kennedy Center
Date: December 20, 2025
Host: JVL (Josh Barro)
Guest: Katherine Rampell

Episode Overview

This episode centers on the startling and controversial move by the Kennedy Center’s board to add Donald Trump’s name to the iconic Washington DC arts complex—now newly dubbed the "Donald J. Trump – John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Arts." Hosts JVL and Katherine Rampell dissect not just the legality and implications of the name change, but place it in the broader context of authoritarian showmanship, cultural co-option, and institutional rebranding under the Trump administration. The pair also reflect on what these symbolic acts say about American institutions, the enforcement of the law, and the ongoing battle over the nation’s cultural identity.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Immediate Reactions and the "Unanimous" Board Vote

• The hosts open with bemusement and skepticism over how quickly Trump’s name has been splashed on the Kennedy Center ("they are up there on scaffolding… it did just happen like 12 hours ago." — JVL, [01:39]).
• Katherine notes Trump has long fixated on getting his name attached to storied institutions:

  "He clearly very desperately wants this great cultural institution named for him. I’m sure he’s shocked that the board decided to do so, even." – Katherine Rampell ([02:18])

• Both mock the claim that the board’s renaming decision was truly unanimous; Katherine quips:

  "This is like North Korea Unanimous." – Katherine Rampell ([03:07])

2. White House Reaction and Surreal Official Statements

• JVL and Katherine riff on Trump’s press secretary’s gushing message on X, lampooning the idea that Trump and JFK would be a “great team."

  "Congratulations to President Donald J. Trump, and likewise, congratulations to President Kennedy, because this will be a truly great team long into the future." – (quoting Caroline Levitt, Trump Press Secretary, [03:28])
  JVL deadpans:
  "No one tell her." ([03:46])

3. Is This Even Legal? Precedent, Law, and Norm Erosion

• JVL points out that renaming the Kennedy Center requires an act of Congress, rendering this move remarkable in its lawlessness:

  "If you or I were to walk up to the Kennedy Center and just start, like, adding letters to the facade, we’d get arrested. But that’s what they’re doing. They’re breaking the law." – JVL ([04:07])

• Katherine contextualizes it:

  "Is it legal? No. Is it the worst thing that this president has done? Probably also no… But I do take your point. This is upsetting and emblematic… of a much broader approach that this administration has toward just really seizing all of the parts of government and channeling them in the President's own name and interests. Literally his name." ([05:04])

• JVL's frustration at collective willingness to play along:

  "Everyone just agrees to go and pretend with him. It is like the stolen election of 2020. What's the harm if we just humor him this little bit more?" ([06:03])

• He draws a link between minor norm-breaking and major breaches:

  "If you can’t enforce the little stuff… then you’re never going to enforce the big stuff because there are real trade offs involved often in enforcing the laws on the big stuff." ([06:58])

4. Cultural Authoritarianism and the Bigger Picture

• Katherine lays out the broader pattern:

  "This is part of a broader pattern of trying to co-opt, censor, or change speech of various kinds… the administration is doing to censor words… Gulf of Mexico, or disability… The Kennedy Center in isolation, it’s not that big of a deal… The problem is it’s part of this much broader pattern of trying to change cultural institutions and trying to change forms of expression, means of expression, the content of expression within this country." ([07:03])

• JVL compares the move to Soviet renaming and other historical authoritarianisms:

  "These sorts of cultural pieces of authoritarianism… never happen in isolation. They're always part of a broad campaign… Like the Soviet Union… When they were going through compiling lists of poets and composers who had like, deviationist thoughts or deviationist music or poetry. They were renaming cities… Normal regimes don’t do this sort of thing." ([10:01])

5. Institutional Damage, Reversibility, and Long-term Legacy

• Katherine laments the loss, both symbolic and literal:

  "For something like the Kennedy Center, I suppose new president can come in and change it back. The East Wing is gone. Like, you can't, you can't go back in time and change that… Some of these other institutions, you can't just quickly undo the damage and rebuild them." ([10:53])

• JVL notes the differences between superficial and systemic damage:

  "The superficial stuff is easy. The other stuff is hard, hard to undo. If you break down the wall between the Fed and the executive branch and the president, you make the Fed into a political body. Hard to undo that…" ([12:23])

6. The Politics of Naming – After Trump

• JVL predicts a durable, even posthumous, wave of “Trump-naming.”

  "Five minutes after Trump goes home to meet his lord, half of the high school football stadiums in America are gonna be named after him. Right. You go down south into any red state, and they're gonna name every fourth building they can find after him." ([13:14])

• Katherine questions this, suggesting the incentive is highest while Trump is alive and wielding power—but admits nobody can forecast the long-term symbolic battles.
• JVL offers another interpretation:

  "The reason they do it after he's dead is to trigger their local opposition… you know that if you name the high school after him, it’s going to drive [liberals] insane. And so that can create political capital for you locally." ([13:24])

7. Satire: What’s Next for the Trump Kennedy Center?

• Katherine and JVL trade barbs about what future programming might look like at the freshly rebranded center:

  "We know that he loves Andrew Lloyd Webber." – Katherine Rampell ([14:13])
  "We’re going to get a Starlight Express. Do you think we’ll get a production of the Starlight Express?" – JVL ([14:22])
  "Maybe we'll get a version of Cats that's like they're eating the cats." – Katherine Rampell ([14:28])

• Rampell riffs on possible shows:

  "A friend of mine actually came up with a list of some of the musical adaptations… Guy and Dolls. Not a musical, but King Lear. L-E-E-R. As I like it. Othello is a very low IQ individual. I barely remember Mama." ([14:34])

• She jokes about the “stadium naming curse,” referencing failed ventures like Enron Field and FTX Arena, and wonders aloud if the “Trump Kennedy Center” will soon belong to that pantheon. ([15:45])

Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• "This is like North Korea Unanimous."
  — Katherine Rampell ([03:07])
• "No one tell her. Don’t tell her."
  — Josh Barro, riffing on Trump’s press secretary hailing the Trump-Kennedy “team” ([03:46])
• "Everyone just agrees to go and pretend with him… It is like the stolen election of 2020. What's the harm if we just humor him this little bit more?"
  — JVL ([06:03])
• "These sorts of cultural pieces of authoritarianism… never happen in isolation. They're always part of a broad campaign."
  — JVL ([10:01])
• "I personally like the idea of calling the soon to be constructed East Wing ballroom, the E. Jean Carroll Ballroom, for example. She's owed something at least of that magnitude."
  — Katherine Rampell, on culinary retributive naming ([11:34])
• "Maybe we'll get a version of Cats that's like they're eating the cats."
  — Katherine Rampell ([14:28])
• "We won't get that lucky."
  — JVL, on the hope that the “Trump Kennedy Center” could bring about hubristic downfall ([16:06])

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:39] — Episode begins; JVL and Katherine react to the breaking news
• [02:35] — "Unanimous" board vote and North Korea comparison
• [03:28] — Trump’s press secretary celebrates Trump-Kennedy “team”
• [04:07] — Discussion: the legality of renaming the Kennedy Center
• [06:03] — Broader lessons and norm erosion
• [07:03] — Rampell on pattern of censorship, speech restriction
• [10:01] — JVL extends comparison to Soviet renaming
• [10:53] — Institutional damage and legacy
• [13:14] — Will everything be named Trump after he’s gone?
• [14:13] — Satirical speculation on future arts programming
• [15:45] — Stadium naming curse and final predictions

Tone and Takeaway

With pointed sarcasm, historical perspective, and genuine alarm, JVL and Katherine highlight the absurdity and underlying menace of the Trump administration's quest for symbolic dominance—turning the renaming of the Kennedy Center into an emblem of wider assaults on American norms, legal process, and expressive freedom. They blend laughs with lamentation, satire with sober analysis, encouraging listeners to see such headline news as connected to broader changes in American civic life.

The hosts suggest: if we laugh too easily or look away from these “small” abuses, we risk paving the way for consequences we can’t simply rebrand or reconstruct in the future.