President Donald Trump on Monday pressed the board of the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts to approve a politically charged plan to shut down the institution for two years.
He said that closing the national cultural center is the fastest way to complete a major renovation.
Speaking at a board meeting in the White House East Room, Trump told trustees, "You have to close it.
"I think everybody agrees, but subject to board approval, we determined that the fastest way to bring the Trump Kennedy Center to the highest level of beauty and grandeur is to cease the entertainment operations for a two-year period of time as we complete really high-quality construction.
"The best way to do it is close it, do it properly, and reopen and have a grand reopening."
Trump said the renovation would leave the complex in better shape than when it opened in 1971, calling the building "somewhat a disaster" before his involvement and pointing to work on air conditioning, seating, and marble as signs of progress already underway.
"And when it's finished, it's going to be far better than it was when it was originally built," Trump said as board members, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Attorney General Pam Bondi, watched.
The board was expected to vote Monday on the shutdown plan, which Trump first announced in February, when he said the center would halt operations beginning July 4 for a roughly two-year reconstruction project.
The meeting came as a legal fight over the proposal intensified.
On Saturday, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled that Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, a former officio Kennedy Center trustee, had to be given documents about the renovation and a meaningful opportunity to participate in Monday's meeting, though he declined to order that she be allowed to vote.
Beatty sued the Trump administration after it moved to exclude her from deliberations over the plan, which Newsmax previously reported was expected to cost $200 million.
Monday's session also followed another leadership shake-up at the center after Ric Grenell announced he would step down as president, with Trump naming Matt Floca, the center's vice president of facilities operations, as his preferred successor pending board approval.
The president has reshaped the Trump Kennedy Center more aggressively in his second term than any recent president, replacing board members with allies, becoming chair himself, and securing $257 million from Congress for the center in a tax and spending package signed last summer.
The changes have triggered backlash from some artists and members of the Kennedy family, while the center has faced cancellations and a drop in attendance.
"When we first took it over, I didn't do it with enthusiasm," Trump said Monday. "I did it because somebody had to do it, had to turn it around because it was failing.
"What I do best in life is build," he said, adding that the renovated venue would become "the finest performing arts facility of its kind anywhere in the world."
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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