U.S. President Donald Trump poses on the purple carpet for the 2025 Kennedy Middle Honors on the John F. Kennedy Middle for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., U.S., December 7, 2025.
Jeenah Moon | Reuters
The John F. Kennedy Memorial Middle for the Performing Arts, generally referred to as the Kennedy Middle, can be renamed the “Trump-Kennedy Middle,” White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt mentioned Thursday.
The celebrated Washington, D.C., cultural heart’s board of trustees, who have been appointed by President Donald Trump in February, “have simply voted unanimously” on the title change, Leavitt mentioned in an X publish.
They did so “due to the unbelievable work President Trump has carried out over the past yr in saving the constructing,” Leavitt mentioned.
“Congratulations to President Donald J. Trump, and likewise, congratulations to President Kennedy, as a result of this can be a really nice crew lengthy into the longer term! The constructing will little doubt attain new ranges of success and grandeur,” she mentioned.
Leavitt’s depiction of a middle that has been saved “not solely from the standpoint of its reconstruction, but additionally financially, and its repute” contrasts with reporting from a number of information shops that ticket gross sales and staffing each have sharply declined this yr.
The New York Occasions reported final month that inner figures confirmed ticket gross sales throughout a typical week in October down by about 50% from the identical interval a yr earlier.
The Washington Publish, which analyzed gross sales knowledge from early September via Oct. 19, discovered an “across-the-board drop-off” in ticket gross sales for the middle’s three largest efficiency areas.
Trump, who named himself chairman of the Kennedy Middle weeks after taking workplace, signaled in October that the title change was forthcoming.
In a Fact Social publish, Trump shared footage of a newly painted colonnade on the surface of the constructing beneath a caption praising “the brand new TRUMP KENNEDY, whoops, I imply, KENNEDY CENTER, columns.”
The middle was not initially named after Kennedy.
It was created in 1958, when President Dwight Eisenhower signed laws to “present for a Nationwide Cultural Middle” in Washington.
In 1962, Eisenhower’s successor, Kennedy, and first girl Jacqueline Kennedy led a $30 million fundraising marketing campaign to construct the middle.
Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963. Two months later, President Lyndon Johnson signed a legislation renaming the middle in honor of the slain president.
Trump has used the Kennedy Middle extensively in the course of the first yr of his second presidential time period.
He attended a board assembly there in March, claiming the constructing was in “super disrepair.” In June, he and first girl Melania Trump appeared for the opening evening of the musical “Les Miserables.”
This month, Trump took the weird step of internet hosting the Kennedy Middle Honors, the place actors Sylvester Stallone and Michael Crawford, and musicians together with Gloria Gaynor, George Strait and the members of ’80s rock band KISS, have been saluted.
Trump additionally attended the FIFA World Cup drawing on the heart, the place he was awarded the soccer group’s newly created “peace prize.”
That is breaking information. Please refresh for updates.
