Kennedy, said that people would “come flooding back” to the Kennedy Center if President Donald Trump stepped away from the institution, as thousands gathered outside the historic venue Friday to protest his plans for its renovation and renaming. Do your job,” Kennedy said on CNN’s The Lead. Her comments came as activists encircled the Kennedy Center in a human chain Friday night, chanting “hands off” as they protested Trump’s plans.
The event was organized by Hands Off the Arts, whose goals include reclaiming the Kennedy Center from "authoritarian overreach.” Newsweek reached out to the Trump administration and the Kennedy Center for comment. The Kennedy Center laid off more than a dozen employees Friday, according to three people familiar with the cuts who spoke on the condition of anonymity, The Washington Post reported. President Donald Trump on Friday defended his push to put his name on the Kennedy Center, saying the venue had lost tens, even hundreds, of millions of dollars for many years and that fixing it would require continued subsidies.
Trump has pushed for a major renovation and reconstruction of the Kennedy Center, while also seeking to have his name added to the building. Congress has already approved $257 million for the work, but Trump has said the renovation will not proceed unless the center is allowed to recognize him on the building. The Kennedy Center board voted on Tuesday to close its main building while keeping a newer, significantly smaller theater wing called the REACH open.
Also Thursday, a photo circulated appearing to show the president looking at demolition plans. Kerry Kennedy called the image “heartbreaking” “This is the monument to our slain president and this is also the monument to arts in our entire country,” she told CNN. The goal has always been to address critical infrastructure and safety needs, and modernizing and preserving the institution “after it was neglected for decades, left in complete and total disrepair," Roma Daravi, vice president of public relations for the Kennedy Center, told Newsweek on Thursday.
Daravi was among those laid off Friday, The Washington Post reported. In late August, Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers warned that the center could be destroyed and replaced with another venue if it cannot undergo the extensive renovations sought by President Donald Trump. Mayers described the building as “dangerously dilapidated, outdated, and decrepit” in the filing, arguing that the center would continue to deteriorate without Trump’s remodeling.
The Kennedy Center was designated by Congress in 1971 as a living memorial to John F. CNN Chief Political Analyst David Axelrod said on Outfront Friday that Trump’s plans would be “like taking a wrecking ball to the Washington Monument or the Lincoln Memorial or the Jefferson Memorial.” Tim Naftali, former director of the Nixon Presidential Library and CNN Presidential Historian, likened the effort to Franklin Roosevelt adding his name to the Lincoln Memorial. The closure may be extended after an evaluation next week.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
