Inside Trump’s Artless Takeover of the Kennedy Center

Summary

Podcast Summary: Inside Trump’s Artless Takeover of the Kennedy Center

The Political Scene | The New Yorker
Host: Tyler Foggatt
Guest: Katie Waldman, Staff Writer at The New Yorker
Date: December 11, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode investigates the dramatic transformation of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts under Donald Trump’s second presidency, focusing on his personal chairmanship and the ripple effects through the institution’s staff, programming, and cultural influence. Tyler Foggatt interviews Katie Waldman about her in-depth reporting on the politicized shift, including the recent Kennedy Center Honors, changes in staff and donors, and what Trump’s approach to cultural institutions says about his personal aesthetics and political agenda.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The 2025 Kennedy Center Honors: A Trumpian Selection

• Unique Lineup:
  • Honorees: Country singer George Strait, glam rock band Kiss, Broadway actor Michael Crawford, disco singer Gloria Gaynor, and actor Sylvester Stallone.
  • Tyler Foggatt notes (04:49): “Tom Cruise declined an invitation to the honors...citing scheduling conflicts.”
• Trump’s Personal Taste:
  • The honoree list reflects “a composite portrait almost of, like, one sensibility. That sensibility being Trump’s.” (Katie Waldman, 05:22)
• Change in Atmosphere:
  • Katie describes the event as “very MAGA, honestly” and likened the crowd to “a Young Republicans convention...a very sort of clean cut, clean shaven, traditional gender roles, kind of homogenous crowd.” (07:32)

2. The Politicization and Reshaping of the Kennedy Center

• Shifted Focus:
  • New programming is “supposed to please or represent Trump, [whereas] the political agenda of the person in power should [historically not] in any way shape what is on the stage at the Kennedy Center.” (Katie Waldman, 16:37)
• Loss of Diversity:
  • The latest class of honorees contrasts prior years, being less diverse: “Gloria Gaynor is a woman of color, and she’s a woman. Everyone else is a white guy. And I don’t think that was an accident at all.” (Katie Waldman, 07:00)
• Staff Changes and Exits:
  • Over 100 have left, with layoffs, firings, and voluntary departures. Atmosphere described as: “No one says, ‘How are you?’ anymore. They just say, ‘Hope you’re doing okay.’” (Katie Waldman, 18:08)
  • New hires include those with loyalty to Trump or visible opposition to “woke” or DEI programming, often lacking arts experience.

3. Programming & Finances under Trump

• Declining Ticket Sales:
  • “Ticket sales are in the toilet...capacity is still quite low...falling far short of their budgets, which is pretty unprecedented for the center.” (Katie Waldman, 21:43)
• Donor Shift:
  • Corporate sponsors are up, but historic individual donors are rescinding bequests or asking for refunds.
  • “Maybe cyberjet gives a couple million dollars, but no one at cyberjet actually cares about the ballet.” (Katie Waldman, 22:40)
• Operational Challenges:
  • Layoffs, loss of institutional knowledge, and new leadership unfamiliar with arts administration: “You need people who understand what an usher is.” (Tyler Foggatt, 23:58)
  • Ceremony snafus observed—“the house lights came up a little bit early,” “striking crews didn’t seem to know what they were doing.” (Katie Waldman, 24:06)

4. Trump’s Cultural and Aesthetic Vision

• Personal Tastes:
  • Trump’s favorite era is the 1980s: “He’s frozen in a lot of ways in the 80s...80s hair bands, Kiss...the Village People...Broadway shows, Cats, Les Mis, Lee Greenwood.” (Katie Waldman, 28:26)
  • Waldman notes Trump’s need for cultural validation: “He sort of has an idea of what he wants culture to reflect under his presidency...He wants some of that glamour.” (26:26)
• Trump vs. MAGA Aesthetics:
  • Trump’s tastes are sometimes at odds with the broader MAGA movement: “There’s a distinction in some ways between the Trump aesthetic and the MAGA aesthetic.” (Tyler Foggatt, 32:10)
  • The host and guest discuss how Trump’s love for anthems like “YMCA” complicates assumptions about cultural conservatism (32:09).

5. Broader Political and Cultural Influence

• Executive Power & Culture:
  • Trump inserts himself into cultural production (e.g. pushing for a Rush Hour franchise revival, staging a planned UFC fight at the White House): “He is using his enormous, outsized power to do just that.” (Katie Waldman, 34:49)
• Comparison to Past Presidents:
  • Kennedy and Obama referenced as previous presidents with strong cultural interests, but “in a way, presidents are poison for the arts because, like, once Obama...puts a book on his...summer list...all the book critics are like, oh, well, I guess I’ll scratch that off my list.” (Katie Waldman, 36:10)

6. Symbolism of the White House Ballroom

• Reflecting Trump’s Legacy:
  • The new, oversized ballroom—“like a mullet where, like, all of it is the party in the back. Right. And so...that sends a message.” (Katie Waldman, 37:02)
  • Seen as part of the “Mar-A-Lago-fication of America...” (Tyler Foggatt, 38:41)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the New Kennedy Center Aesthetic:
  “It was very MAGA, honestly...it felt like a Young Republicans convention.”
  —Katie Waldman (07:32)

• On Programming and Donors:
  “Maybe cyberjet gives a couple million dollars, but no one at cyberjet actually cares about the ballet.”
  —Katie Waldman (22:40)

• Trump’s Cultural Project:
  “He wants a trapdoor into people’s souls and he thinks that culture is that trapdoor and not politics.”
  —Katie Waldman (30:57)

• On the Dangers of Presidential Influence:
  “In a way, presidents are poison for the arts...once Obama...puts a book on his...summer list...all the book critics are like, oh, well, I guess I’ll scratch that off my list.”
  —Katie Waldman (36:10)

• On the Ballroom as a Monument:
  “It just dwarfs the rest of the White House...like a mullet where, like, all of it is the party in the back.”
  —Katie Waldman (37:02)

• Summary of the Moment:
  “Yeah, the Mar-A-Lago-fication of America. That’s what’s happening here.”
  —Tyler Foggatt (38:41)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:14] Introduction of episode theme and overview of Kennedy Center changes
• [03:37] Kennedy Center Honors: Trump’s influence on selection and event
• [07:32] Firsthand experience at the Honors: The new “MAGA” vibe
• [12:31] The Kennedy Center’s cultural ecosystem—how it’s structured and why it matters
• [16:37] Analysis of government involvement and Trump’s unprecedented intervention
• [17:59] Staff exodus, new hiring practices, and “finger on the scale” management
• [21:43] Conflicting narratives about finances, boycotts, and donor changes
• [24:06] Event and operational mishaps under new management
• [26:26] Trump’s complex relationship to arts and culture
• [28:26] Trump's aesthetic roots in the 1980s
• [32:10] Distinction between Trump’s and MAGA’s cultural vision
• [33:26] Discussion of Trump’s impact on national cultural trends (Paramount, UFC)
• [35:02] Comparison to Kennedy and Obama, and cultural leadership from the presidency
• [37:02] The symbolism of the new White House ballroom and Trump’s aesthetic legacy
• [38:41] Closing thoughts: “Mar-A-Lago-fication of America”

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Tone & Language

Candid, satirical, and analytic—reflecting the New Yorker’s signature blend of humor and depth. Tyler and Katie maintain an engaging, conversational style, punctuated by dry wit, disbelief, and cultural critique.

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Conclusion

The episode offers a compelling look at the complex interplay between politics and culture under Trump’s renewed leadership, particularly at the emblematic Kennedy Center. Katie Waldman’s observations reveal a deeply personalized, nostalgic, and sometimes paradoxical Trumpian vision driving changes across one of America’s most prestigious arts institutions—raising questions about the future of public culture in a polarized era.

Transcript

[UNHCR Narrator]

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[Tyler Foggatt]

Hey, Katie.

[Katie Waldman]

Hey, Tyler.

[Tyler Foggatt]

Thanks so much for being here.

[Katie Waldman]

Thank you for having me.

[Tyler Foggatt]

Of the five people recognized at this past weekend's Kennedy Center Honors, who do you think best encapsulates the Trump aesthetic?

[Katie Waldman]

Hmm, that is such a good question. And I think each one of them has their own special claim to a part of his psyche. However, I would go with Michael Crawford, who defined the role of the Phantom of the Opera, just because something about the, like, openly sentimental, campy vibe that he brings to his performances, I think, like, that is aspirational for Trump in a way.

[Tyler Foggatt]

I'm glad you mentioned Phantom of the Opera. I was able to, I'd, like, gone to it for the first time with my husband a few years ago. I think it was a birthday present to me. Cause I have always enjoyed Phantom of the Opera and had never seen it on Broadway. And every time the Phantom came on stage, people would shout and kind of jeer. And it was the most vocal audience I've ever been a part of.

[Katie Waldman]

That's wild. I have to confess, I've never actually seen the Phantom of the Opera. And I was shocked when the tribute started and just the rock drums came in.

[Tyler Foggatt]

It's amazing. Was there a chance there wasn't?

[Katie Waldman]

Well, the Opera hall has a chandelier, and I was kind of like, is it gonna fall? I hope not.

[Tyler Foggatt]

That's Katie Waldman, a staff writer at the New Yorker who covers culture, books, and more. This year's Kennedy Center Honors, the first under Trump's second term and the first under his chairmanship, looked very different from previous years. The ceremony was shaped by Trump's own tastes from the event's production design to a lineup of honorees that included Kiss and Sylvester Stallone. And it came after a year of major upheaval at the center, with Trump firing much of the bipartisan leadership, installing close allies, and setting off a wave of cancellations from artists and donors. In addition to attending and writing about this year's ceremony, Katie has reported on how the institution has changed and what those changes tell us about Trump's approach to one of the country's most visible cultural platforms. So I wanted to talk with her about what stood out at this year's honors, what her reporting has uncovered inside the Kennedy center, and how all of this fits into Trump's relationship to arts and culture. This is the political scene. I'm Tyler Foggatt, and I'm a senior editor at the New Yorker.

So this past Sunday night was the 48th Kennedy Center Honors, which was the first under Trump's second presidency and also the first under Trump's chairmanship. He also assumed hosting duties, comparing himself favorably to Johnny Carson and saying that he would do a better job than Jimmy Kimmel would have. Do you agree with that? Just real quick?

[Katie Waldman]

I do not.

[Tyler Foggatt]

Okay, so we have a Kimmel Stan in the house.

[Katie Waldman]

I was actually reluctant to say that because I didn't want to be cast as a Kimmel Stan. But, like, I'll give it to you, Jimmy.

[Tyler Foggatt]

You're either for Trump or you're for Kimmel. It's really just. There's no in between. But for those listening who aren't familiar with the Kennedy Center Honors, what exactly is this ceremony and what has it historically represented?

[Katie Waldman]

Sure. So the Kennedy center honors began in 1978. It is like the most prestigious lifetime achievement award for people in the performing arts in the country, or at least that's how it's billed. And every year there is a sort of glitzy, star studded gala that is based at the Kennedy Center. And the night before, the President has all of the honorees over for dinner at the White House. And it's just sort of the highest wattage nights for D.C. so this year's.

[Tyler Foggatt]

Honorees were country singer George Strait, the glam rock band Kiss, Broadway actor Michael Crawford, disco singer Gloria Gaynor, and actor Sylvester Stallone. I'm happy to report that Tom Cruise declined an invitation to the honors. He. He cited scheduling conflicts, of course, which makes sense. He's probably, like, jumping off a cliff or something. In your piece, you seem to agree with Trump's assertion that we've had no group like it in Reference to the people I just mentioned who. What makes them unique in your mind? And are there any past honorees who you think it's helpful to contrast them with?

[Katie Waldman]

Sure. I mean, just even thinking about last year, and I don't have the list in front of me, but I think it was Bonnie Raitt. There have been directors like Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, comedians like Steve Martin, Aretha Franklin, Carole King. Just these real luminaries in their fields. And without taking anything away from this cohort of awardees, like Gloria Gaynor, I Will Survive. That's a great song. I mean, their name recognition is not quite at the level that one expects at this point from the Kennedy Center Honors. And I think really what defines this class of honorees is how closely they sort of adhere to one particular man's taste. That man being the president. Donald Trump, like Sylvester Stallone, the sort of violent boxer, underdog figure, the sort of sturdy country type, the disco queen, the Broadway star. All of this felt like it was painting a composite portrait almost of, like, one sensibility. That sensibility being Trump's.

[Tyler Foggatt]

Yeah. Or it's like people Trump wishes he could be besides president. Yes.

[Katie Waldman]

Yeah.

[Tyler Foggatt]

Which is a weird element.

[Katie Waldman]

Totally.

[Tyler Foggatt]

When Trump took over the Kennedy center, and we're gonna talk more about that process and sort of the damage he's wrought on the center, later, he characterized it attack on woke culture, which is something that we've heard a lot during Trump's second term that, you know, he's going after woke culture in academia and, you know, in the government. Do you think that this year's honors felt like a part of that attack, or am I just focusing way too hard on the fact that, like, Sylvester Stallone was there And.

[Katie Waldman]

No, I think that's a really good point, because one thing that you might notice looking back on the historical honorees is representation was a thing like, in terms of artistic media, in terms of people's backgrounds. It was a diverse group. And here we have, you know, Gloria Gaynor is a woman of color, and she's a woman. Everyone else is a white guy. And I don't think that was an accident at all.

[Tyler Foggatt]

So you were actually at this ceremony. What was the vibe?

[Katie Waldman]

Yeah, well, it was very. It was very maga, honestly. And I hope I'm not just projecting what I expected to find, but I really think I came in there as someone who had grown up in D.C. and had a sort of set of. Of expectations around the Kennedy center, and I walked into the grand foyer, and I thought it did feel really different. The people there. It was this very sort of like, clean cut, clean shaven, traditional gender roles, kind of homogenous crowd, with some exceptions. But, you know, it felt like a Young Republicans convention. The age range, there were some people from older generations, but it was a lot of young people. And there was a lot of excitement. I mean, people seemed to be enjoying themselves. There was a lot of political talk. For a festival of the arts, you didn't really hear a lot about music or dance. You heard people talking about what it was like living in D.C. during the Trump administration. You heard people talking about conservatives versus Democrats. So that was kind of my initial impression of the vibe.

[Tyler Foggatt]

That's devastating. Just because I feel like one of the great things about kind of cultural celebrations like that is that it can sometimes be the only place where you don't have to talk about politics. And it's like, I would hope that at, like, an Oscars after party, people aren't talking about whether, you know, we're still in a democracy. Like, feels like that would be like, the one place where you can just talk about, like, how much you loved Enora. And so it's funny that at the Kennedy center honors that, I guess, partly because Trump has taken it over, that, like, that has subsumed even just, like, the conversation of the people who are in the audience.

[Katie Waldman]

Absolutely. Like, it did not transcend the political situation at all.

[Tyler Foggatt]

How was the menu?

[Katie Waldman]

Oh, you know, I didn't actually get to try some of the snacks, but they did look pretty good. There was a steak salad served in a glass, and then there was a harvest bowl that had, like, microgreens and quinoa and some shrimp cocktail. Like, no complaints about the menu. I did have some champagne. It was bubbly.

[Tyler Foggatt]

That's great. Yeah. Vegetables, bubbles. Those things aren't too woke for Trump. So we're gonna take a quick break, and then when we come back, I want to talk about this year of upheaval at the Kennedy center and what Trump's takeover has meant for the institution's finances, its staff, and its programming. This is the political scene from the New Yorker. We'll be right back.

[Katie Drummond]

What the hell is going on right now, and why is it happening like this? At Wired, we're obsessed with getting to the bottom of those questions on a daily basis, and maybe you are, too. I'm Katie Drummond, the global editorial director of Wired, and I'm hosting our new podcast series, the Big Inter. Each week, I'll sit down with some of the most interesting, provocative, and influential people who are shaping our right now. Big interview conversations are fun.

[Jason Adam Katzenstein]

I want a shark that that eats.

[Katie Drummond]

The Internet, that turns it all off, unfiltered and unafraid.

[Katie Waldman]

So in a lot of ways, I try to be an antidote to the unimaginable faucet of reactionary content that you see online. To the best of my ability, every.

[Katie Drummond]

Week we're going to offer you the ultimate luxury of our times, meaning and context. True or false? Brian Johnson, the man sitting across from me one day, at some point, as of yet undefined in the future, you will die. False. Tell me more. Listen to the big interview right now in the same place you find WIRED's Uncanny Valley podcast. Subscribe or follow wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jason Adam Katzenstein]

I'm New Yorker cartoonist and perennially cold man, Jason Adam Katzenstein Cold mornings Holiday plans this is when I need my wardrobe to just work. Which is why I'm looking at the Mongolian cashmere puffer coat from Quince. Quince pieces are crafted from premium materials and built to hold up without the luxury markup, which is great because I don't want to break the bank, but I also don't want to be shivering anymore. Quince makes essentials that I need. Their outerwear lineup's no joke, down jackets, wool top coats, and leather styles that are built to last. Each piece is made from premium materials by trusted factories that meet rigorous standards for craftsmanship and ethical production. It's everything that I actually want to wear, built to hold up season after season so that I can hold up season after season. Get your wardrobe sorted and your gift list handled with quints. Don't wait. Go to quints.com politicalscene for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada, too. That's quince.com politicalscene free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com politicalscene.

[Tyler Foggatt]

So let's take a step back and talk about the year leading up to the honors, which you've described as one of the most chaotic periods in the Kennedy Center's history. I guess before we get into how the Kennedy center has changed, I'm wondering if you can talk about its general kind of importance and relevance to American cultural life. And by that I just mean, like, I'm very like New York pilled. So I think about like Lincoln center. And I guess I'm just wondering, like, what kind of space in the culture the Kennedy center has occupied up until this point? Like, what kind of programming would you generally see there and how it sort of stacks up against other storied venues?

[Katie Waldman]

Yeah, I mean, it's a great question in part because there are a lot of moving parts and the image of the Kennedy center is not exactly the reality of it. So, I mean, you have this kind of. Its affiliates are the National Symphony Orchestra and the Washington National Opera. So there is this dimension of the Kennedy center that is this high classical, very elegant programming, the kind of bipartisan thing that sort of your Republican grandmother and your liberal grandfather would both enjoy going to for an evening. And that part is the sort of cultural prestige. And it's something that D.C. is understandably very proud of, that you can get the Vienna Philharmonic and all of these international acts touring through the Kennedy center because they know that it is like a valuable and sort of glittering place to descend for a night. And then you have the kind of. I wish I had a better word for this, but like the faintly derpy.

Programming, like sheer madness that's been around since 1987 and, you know, will probably be around long after the United States falls into the sea and.

Sort of the crowd pleasing fair where you take your children.

And so there is that kind of populist arm which Trump does seem interested in strengthening, although one could ask, like, is he not aware that it's already doing well? And of course, part of that too is sort of popular programming in collaboration with the nso. So they've been trying to partner with hip hop artists and with, you know, John Williams score performances, things like that.

[Tyler Foggatt]

Oh, so like one of those things where it's like we're showing Star wars with a live score and you bring your kids.

[Katie Waldman]

Yeah, yeah.

[Tyler Foggatt]

I love when I'm like such a sucker for that.

[Katie Waldman]

No, same, same. And so there's this elegant part, there's this more crowd pleasing part, and then the sort of under the rad, but incredibly important to the Kennedy center third arm is all of this kind of smaller programming. A lot of it was under the auspices of a now sunsetted program called the Social Impact Team. And it would be supporting artists from marginalized communities. It would be sort of the smaller free programming at the Millennium Stage. It would be impressionistic dancing and a cappella groups and local playwrigh. I was talking to one person who told me that the Millennium Stage, it was so popular that programmers would get a sudden message like, hey, can you make space for a Supreme Court justice who wants to discuss her book on your stage this week? You know, so it was an embarrassment of riches. A lot of it under the radar. But like Very valuable to the Kennedy center community. And so those three different aspects of programming all work together to create this sort of thriving ecosystem of the arts.

[Tyler Foggatt]

And how involved or uninvol, has the US Government been in the Kennedy center up until Trump took over? Like, it's called the Kennedy center. It's in D.C. i get that, like, you know, Supreme Court justices would sometimes, like, do events there, but, like, is there. And I assume that some of the programs that are being put on are receiving, like, federal arts funding. But have we ever seen, like, the White House kind of be so interested in the Kennedy center, or should we see it as something that's, like, completely separate?

[Katie Waldman]

Yeah, I mean, the answer is no. The Kennedy center is a public, private partnership, and so it does get funding from the government, but that money is really only supposed to be used for physical repairs, not the performing arts part of it at all. And the President has this kind of ceremonial role. He puts his imprimatur on the honors every year, but is really supposed to, or at least traditionally, has taken a kind of backseat to the operations of the center. And so this is really, really different. The idea that. That the programming in the center is supposed to please or represent Trump, that the political agenda of the person in power should in any way shape what is on the stage at the Kennedy Center. And just to give an example of that, we've seen memorials for Charlie Kirk. We've seen town halls, I think, put on by NewsNation. Oh, there was a conference about Christian persecution that was sponsored by cpac. And those are the types of things that are at center now that never used to be around.

[Tyler Foggatt]

And how are the outgoing and remaining members of the Kennedy center responding to these changes? I mean, like, what is it like for. Has there been kind of like a mass exodus of employees?

[Katie Waldman]

You know, I think it's a mix. I think at least 100 people have left. First of all, there have been many, many layoffs and many firings.

[Tyler Foggatt]

It got, like, doged.

[Katie Waldman]

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And then the people who could afford to quit, many of them did. I talked to one person who said, no one says, how are you anymore? They just say, hope you're doing okay.

So even the small talk has changed. And I do think that people are trying to make it work. Curators are saying, oh, do you like country music? Do you like popular dance? We can reach out to artists. We have these networks. We can try to cater to those tastes, and we know how to do it. But, I mean, one thing that Richard Grinnell, who is the president of the Kennedy center has said over and over is that no one is canceled at the Kennedy Center. All artists are welcome. But the truth is that by firing the curatorial leads of many of the center's programs, he is putting his finger on the scale of who can appear there, because the people who would book certain artists are no longer around to do so.

[Tyler Foggatt]

I just want to go back really quickly to a name you mentioned, which is Richard Grinnell, who's in charge of the Kennedy Center. I feel like most people think of him as like the presidential envoy for Trump's sort of diplomacy in North Korea and Venezuela. Do you have any intel, to use a word, that Grinnell probably deals with quite often on, like, why Grinnell? Like, and sort of what it's meant for someone like him?

[Katie Waldman]

Yeah, why Grinnell? This is the question on everyone's lips at the Kennedy Center.

[Tyler Foggatt]

Even, like, Melania Trump or someone I would have understood, like, oh, okay, he thinks, like, this is, like, a job for a lady. Melania Trump likes music. But, like, Grinnell just seems so random.

[Katie Waldman]

Sure. Grinnell appears to have a kind of weakness for celebrity. When he was coming up through the UN he brushed shoulders with Ryan Gosling and George Clooney. Afterwards, he started a PR fir to be interested in booking celebrities, although he was not so successful in doing that. And so it may be that he has this interest in showbiz that Trump has benevolently realized. But I think also this is a broader pattern of Trump installing people whose main qualification is loyalty. And you see this all the way down at the Kennedy center that, you know, the new director of dance is not so much an arts administrator as someone who wrote a letter to Grinnell saying that ballet had gotten too woke. One of the new programmers, Sammy Miller, basically came to Grinnell's attention because he wrote an editorial in the Wall Street Journal about how the left had politicized the arts. And many of the people in top administrative positions at the Kennedy center now have personal relationships with either Grinnell or Carrie Lake or Trump himself.

[Tyler Foggatt]

Wow.

I've never had more follow up questions during an interview. One thing that I want to talk about is just sort of the. The dueling narrative surrounding the organization's finances, which is something that you've reported on because the current leadership cites record fundraising and corporate gifts and sponsorships and a sold out opening night of the center's run of the Sound of Music. But then internal sales figures, and it seems like staffers you've spoken with have painted a different picture. So what is your sense of like, how the Kennedy center is doing financially. Like, is it in trouble? Is it. Is it thriving? Is it somewhere in between?

[Katie Waldman]

Yeah, I mean, it's very hard to know because the boycotts are indisputable. People are not buying tickets. And some of the most readily available information that we have is that ticket sales are in the toilet. You know, they're moving popular shows like Spamalot or like Parade this summer from the Opera House or the Concert hall into the Eisenhower Theater so that it looks like more people have attended, and capacity is still quite low. They're not meeting their budgets. They're falling far short of their budgets, which is pretty unprecedented for the center. Normally, they do beat their budgets. And so we know that on the ticket side, they're really, really struggling in terms of donations and contributions. That's a little bit trickier.

[Tyler Foggatt]

I guess there's a world in which, like, people aren't buying tickets to go, but then more people are donating it because they support Trump's mission or because they feel like they need to make up for the lack of ticket sales. Like, it could be like both narratives are true simultaneously.

[Katie Waldman]

Yes, but. But it's also interesting that the people who seem to be donating, or I should say the corporations or the country, the countries that seem to be donating, don't seem to have an organic connection to the arts, which may also explain the patchy attendance at shows. You know, maybe cyberjet gives a couple million dollars, but no one at cyberjet actually cares about the ballet. So, I mean, we do know that longtime individual donors have rescinded their bequests.

Are asking for refunds on their subscriptions. And so maybe they are getting a lot of money, but not in the way that nonprofit arts organizations are accustomed to doing.

[Tyler Foggatt]

So one thing that you report on that's interesting is just the idea that there are all these longtime staffers who have been pushed out, they've had their credit cards revoked, PTO changes, bans on pronouns, and email signatures, and also new hires who don't understand the basic vocabulary of arts administration. Capacity means or what an usher is. Which, to me, I mean, it seems like that's the kind of thing that you just can't have go on for that long before the thing just collapses. Like, you need people who understand what an usher is.

[Katie Waldman]

Right, right.

[Tyler Foggatt]

How is that affecting day to day operations? And did you see any of that when you were at the honors?

[Katie Waldman]

Yeah, I mean, it's not sustainable. And what I've heard over and over is that it's not Sustainable. At the particular honors ceremony, there were a few snafus. I would describe them as pretty mil. You know, the house lights came up a little bit early before, like, videos were over. At certain points, like, the striking crews didn't seem to know what they were doing. And there would be sort of like a mic to voice saying, okay, guys, move the piano. But I think in the day to day operations, that's where you really see that kind of Doge thing of like a group of people coming in to demolish a very fragile ecosystem and then just like, have some Astroturf and a board of wood and a glue gun and they're like, we're great.

[Tyler Foggatt]

In a minute, we'll turn to Trump's broader relationship to art and culture. This is the political scene from the New Yorker.

[Heidi Blake]

It's one of Britain's most notorious crimes, the killing of a wealthy family at White House Farm. But I got a tip that the story of this famous case might be all wrong.

[Katie Waldman]

I know there's going to be a.

[Tyler Foggatt]

Twist one day, a massive twist. At every level of the criminal justice system, there's been a cover up in this case.

[Heidi Blake]

I'm Heidi Blake. Blood Relatives is a new series from in the Dark and the New Yorker. Find it now in the in the Dark podcast feed.

[Tyler Foggatt]

So I really want to talk to you about how arts and culture figure into Trump's public Persona as well as his presidency, because I feel like it's like, one of the only things that kind of makes him seem human sometimes. The fact that he genuinely seems to have this, like, kind of infatuation with Broadway and certain performers, like, in a way that makes him just seem like it's like the most normal thing about him. I think a lot of people would probably agree with that. So as you were reporting on the Kennedy center honors and on Trump's takeover of the institution, did you feel like you learned anything new about his relationship to the arts or, like, anything that kind of complicated your previous understanding of it?

[Katie Waldman]

Yeah. I mean, one thing, I love the way you put that, that it does make him seem human, because in a way, many parts of Trump's aesthetic vision are about power and they are about asserting dominance. But there is this sort of sliver of it that does feel more intimate and more private and personal. And I remember I was talking to someone who said Trump is the only person who has a vision for the Kennedy Center. Everyone else is just trying to gut it, you know, extract as much profit or as much money or power as they can before moving on. To the next thing. But Trump, he sort of has an idea of what he wants culture to reflect under his presidency. And, you know, you can say that idea is hint him. He wants culture to reflect him. But what does that mean? And something that has been sort of poignant in reporting this piece is I think there's sort of a tension between how Trump wants to be seen and what Trump likes in that. Just thinking about what the Kennedy center represents for a lot of us, there is that high classical, prestigious part. And he really wants some of that glamour, you know, like the sort of pearls and the woodwinds and the sopranos and whatever. But what he likes is the crowd pleasing stuff. He likes Cats, he likes the Phantom of the Opera. And I think that it's almost as if he wants to use the Kennedy center to transmogrify his actual taste into sort of high culture. And if he can just import his stuff into the Kennedy center, it will turn it into gold. And we will all agree that Trump is like the great culture, cultural taste maker of our time.

[Tyler Foggatt]

I wonder if you can just very quickly remind everyone what his taste is or kind of adds up to what are kind of the main strains of. Seems like a lot of it is crowd pleasing entertainment. That was popular in the 80s.

[Katie Waldman]

Yes. And on Weber, the 80s is a very central piece of this. So thank you for bringing that up. He's frozen in a lot of ways in the 80s, I think, politically as well. But it's sort of, you know, 80s hair bands.

And Kiss is an example. 80s musicals, the type of thing that, like, he thought people loved in the 80s. So, yeah, he's talked about Cats, he's talked about Les Mis, sort of these Broadway shows. The Village People is really big for him. You know, Lee Greenwood, proud to be an American. There's the sort of country side of. And I think then there's this, you know, feminine beauty. I think. So, like the American beauty pageant side of things is like, also somewhere in there. I guess that would be the sort of jigsaw puzzle that I would start with.

[Tyler Foggatt]

Do you have any grand theories as to why it is that Trump is so drawn in particular to the 80s? I mean, like, obviously people just like the art that they like. My dad also was obsessed with the 80s in part because that was one of the greater periods of his life. I think there's like a nostalgic aspect to it. And so I'm wondering if, like, you have any theories as to why Trump likes art coming from that decade so much too. Maybe it is Just like he was killing it in the 80s.

[Katie Waldman]

Yeah. I mean, well, what we know about Trump is he wants to go back, right? And whether that's like some mythologized American past, it might just be the 80s.

I mean, I do think that politics is downstream of culture for him. And he may actually, like a lot of people say, oh, he missed his calling as just like a television star or a talk show host or something.

[Tyler Foggatt]

Have you seen that video of him on, like, I think it's the Wendy Williams show where he's talking to that girl who is, like, having trouble getting her boyfriend to propose to her.

[Wendy Williams Show Caller]

I mean, you love him that much?

[Katie Drummond]

Absolutely.

[Wendy Williams Show Caller]

Can you live without him?

[Katie Drummond]

No, I cannot.

[Wendy Williams Show Caller]

Because, you know, if he has that now in the back of his mind, it could be true trouble.

[Wendy Williams]

How long have you been with him?

[UNHCR Narrator]

12 years.

[Wendy Williams]

And how old are you?

[Tyler Foggatt]

32.

[Wendy Williams Show Caller]

And why boyfriend?

[Jason Adam Katzenstein]

He's not.

[Wendy Williams]

Yeah, exactly.

[Katie Waldman]

It's another show.

[Wendy Williams]

Then you know what? After 12 years, maybe this is not the guy for you. And if we have to have another show on why it is you want to get married and he hasn't married you, then maybe they need to break up.

[Wendy Williams Show Caller]

And you know what? I'm looking at you. You will have no trouble getting guys.

[Tyler Foggatt]

He's just having the time of his life. And, like, so many people are like, if there's a version of reality where, like, this is just his full time job, like, I would be the biggest Trump supporter ever.

[Katie Waldman]

100%. But yeah, no, I think that, like, he wants a trapdoor into people's souls and he thinks that culture is that trapdoor and not politics and something that I kind of like, in a backwards way, respect about him is like, a lot of his hangers on seem to be interested in the Kennedy center so that they can just ram through an ideological agenda. They're like, we hate trans people, we hate, like, lgbtq, we hate diversity and dei. And so, like, we want all of these cultures offerings to reflect our conservatism. And for him, he's like, yes, sure, I'll give you some time for that. But I actually have an aesthetic that I would like to promote that has nothing to do with politics and, like, maybe has something to do with, like, daddy issues and like, different alternate versions of my life. I mean, there is and is maybe.

[Tyler Foggatt]

More woke than you would think. I mean, it's. I don't know if I would say, like, YMCA is woke, but I think it definitely cuts against. I mean, it's like a gay anthem, right? And he and Trump Knows it's a gay anthem.

[Katie Waldman]

Yeah, yeah.

[Tyler Foggatt]

And so I do think there's this funny way in which he's, like, trying to reconcile sometimes his more macho posturing with his deep love of Cats, the Musical, or Les Mis.

[Katie Waldman]

Yeah.

[Tyler Foggatt]

I mean, so it seems like you were kind of speaking to the fact that there is a distinction in some ways between the Trump aesthetic and the MAGA aesthetic. I guess I don't know if the MAGA aesthetic is necessarily. I feel like there are words that I would use to describe it that aren't necessarily just, like, anti woke, but it seems like Trump has a clear vision for this aesthetic. And then there's also this MAGA aesthetic that is somewhat distinct from the stuff that Trump likes and listens to.

[Katie Waldman]

Yeah, or like, the Republican. Like, the New Young Republican. Like all of those articles that you see about, like, we're making Republicans hot again. Like, he's into that, but that's not really his thing. Like, he doesn't know any of the Internet lingo. He's, like, he doesn't know the memes. I mean, maybe he knows the memes. I don't know. Sorry, Trump.

[Tyler Foggatt]

But, like, he'd rather just tweet about Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson's relationship.

[Katie Waldman]

Exactly, exactly.

[Tyler Foggatt]

Outside of the Kennedy center, we've also seen Trump taking steps to kind of affect mass culture more broadly. So he reportedly pushed Larry Ellison, who owns Paramount Skydance and is one of Trump's most prominent financial supporters, to revive the Rush Hour franchise with previously canceled director Brett Ratner, who also directed the recent Melania documentary for Amazon. And Ratner is set to direct the fourth installment of the Rush Hour series.

[Katie Waldman]

Oh, my gosh.

[Tyler Foggatt]

And then there are plans to stage, of course, a UFC fight on the White House lawn next year as part of the country's 250th anniversary.

[Katie Waldman]

Proud to be an American.

[Tyler Foggatt]

How much of, like, what we're seeing. And sometimes there's also outrage about these things. I can't believe that he's using the White House lawn for a UFC fight or that he's taking over this cultural institution or that he wants to buy this music. How much of that agenda do you think is just him wanting to play some kind of role in stuff that he finds cool or potentially funny?

[Katie Waldman]

I mean, I think that's a really good theory. When you were talking about, like, how do we parse this outrage? How much outrage should we assign to this stuff? I mean, I think there's the grift aspect and that, you know, the corruption and the self dealing that is worthy of condemnation. And then there is that sort of part that, like, falls under the banner of let people enjoy things. And I personally don't find that argument very persuasive. I think we should have cultural standards, but I can see how if you're not the president, you should be allowed to participate in events and movements that give you pleasure and entertainment. And I do think that Trump is using his enormous outsized power to do just that.

[Katie Drummond]

Yeah.

[Tyler Foggatt]

Has there ever been a president in your mind who has used their executive power in a way that affected cultural institutions and sort of, like mass culture so much?

[Katie Waldman]

I mean, I do think that, to come back to the Kennedy Center, John F. Kennedy spoke very movingly about moral leadership through the arts. And the Kennedy center itself, the idea for it, it was Eisenhower's, and it was coming out of World War II, and he felt like, we need a spiritual reset. We saw this carnage. People are disillusioned. We need a way to inspire them, and we can do that through sort of the beauty of collective human creation. And I think that idea has been kind of carried forward through the decades and is actually part of what the Kennedy center represents, which is what makes this latest development really tragic.

[Tyler Foggatt]

Yeah, you're totally right about Kennedy himself. And then I just feel like another person who I sort of think of as, like, a president who also has some kind of interest in cultural production or being a cultural figure would be Barack Obama. Although a lot of that has also been post presidency, you know, via, like, his Netflix collabs and that kind of thing, which I think a lot of people also look down on.

[Katie Waldman]

Right.

[Tyler Foggatt]

And so I also wonder, like, if it's something that we necessarily even want.

[Katie Waldman]

Well, I think that, like, in a way, presidents are poison for the arts because, like, once Obama, like, once he puts a book on his. Like, these are the books I'm reading this summer. Like, I'm sure it's great for the author, but then, like, all the book critics are like, oh, well, I guess I'll scratch that off my list.

[Tyler Foggatt]

I want to end by talking about the White House ballroom, in part because it's, like, one of my just favorite subjects to discuss, but they just hired a new architect for this. And I guess I'm wondering how you say, you know, we've been talking a lot about the Kennedy center, but I guess I wonder how you think about the ballroom in terms of reflecting both Trump's personal aesthetic and then also the legacy that he wants to leave behind as president, given that this is A ballroom that I assume will stick around even after Trump is out of office. Maybe the next president will just, like, immediately demolish it, bulldoze it. But, like, if you see the ballroom as being part of this conversation, too.

[Katie Waldman]

Oh, absolutely. Like, I think one of the first things that I learned about the ballroom is that it just dwarfs the rest of the White House. Right? So it's like, here's where business happens, and then, like, here it's like a mullet where, like, all of it is the party in the back. Right. And so, like, you know, that sends a message. Right.

I mean, it does seem like part of the conversation, especially when we hear about what the ballroom will look like with the sort of gold and the sort of, like, ugly fonts on the signs. It does seem like Trump likes to exercise power as a real estate developer and as, like, a building impresario. And this is part of that.

[Tyler Foggatt]

And it is interesting his ability to create these stories that generate both political outrage, where it's like, there's probably a lot of corruption with this ballroom. Like, who's paying for it? Like, also, you're destroying history. There's, like, that element of the conversation, and then there's also just, like, the aesthetic outrage, which I think is maybe the thing that was so prevalent during Trump's first presidency, too, or even just, like, his first campaign, where it's, like, really, like, this guy is the president. And so sometimes it can be hard to remember that, like, there's, like, objecting to him on actual political grounds as opposed to just the aesthetic grounds, because he does in some way, he should be able to, like, Phantom of the Opera, I guess.

[Katie Waldman]

Right? I mean, I think also the Mar A Lago has preempted a lot of those criticisms. Like, we've already seen Mar A Lago. He seems to be basically replicating it. And so looking at the ballroom now, it's sort of like, yes, it continues to be kind of tawdry and embarrassing, but we've kind of processed that already.

[Tyler Foggatt]

Yeah, the Mar A Lago fication of America. That's what's happening here.

Well, thank you so much for being here, Katie. This was so fun.

[Katie Waldman]

Thanks, Tyler. This is great.

[Tyler Foggatt]

Katie Waldman is a staff writer for the New Yorker. You can find her recent reporting on the Kennedy Center Honors, as well as an earlier piece called the Trump show comes to the kennedy [e-mail] this has been the political scene from the New Yorker. I'm Tyler Foggatt. This episode was produced by John Lamay with mixing by Mike Kutchman and engineering by Pran Bandy. Our executive producer is Steven Valentino. Our theme music is by Alison Layton Brown. Thanks so much for listening.

[Katie Waldman]

From prx.