Trump says he’s firing Kennedy Center board of trustees members and naming himself chairman

Trump’s announcement came arsenic the caller president has bulldozed his mode crossed authoritative Washington during the archetypal weeks of his 2nd term, trying to shutter national agencies, frost spending and ending diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives crossed the government.

“At my direction, we are going to marque the Kennedy Center successful Washington DC, GREAT AGAIN. I person decided to instantly terminate aggregate individuals from the Board of Trustees, including the Chairman, who bash not stock our Vision for a Golden Age successful Arts and Culture,” Trump wrote.

“We volition soon denote a caller Board, with an astonishing Chairman, DONALD J. TRUMP!” Unlike former President Joe Biden and different commanders successful main done the decades, Trump did not be the yearly Kennedy Center Honors ceremonies during his archetypal term, held astatine the performing arts venue successful Washington’s Foggy Bottom vicinity that opened successful 1971.

Shortly aft Trump’s post, the Kennedy Center website began experiencing method difficulties. Visitors got a connection speechmaking “We are experiencing precocious traffic” and were redirected to a “waiting room” that listed however galore hundreds of radical were trying to entree the tract up of them.

Trump suggested successful his station that helium would beryllium implementing immoderate changes to the center’s show schedule, noting that past twelvemonth “the Kennedy Center featured Drag Shows specifically targeting our younker — THIS WILL STOP.”

According to its website, the halfway successful July hosted a preshow titled “A Drag Salute to Divas” and a November “Drag Brunch.” In his post, Trump did not clarify which committee of trustee members helium would beryllium terminating too the existent chairman, philanthropist David Rubenstein. The committee often features governmental powerbrokers and large donors, and is presently made up of members from some sides of the aisle.

Rubenstein was archetypal elected to the station successful 2010 and reelected each twelvemonth since that time. Also, the main proprietor of the Baltimore Orioles, Rubenstein was primitively appointed to the Kennedy Center committee by President George W. Bush and subsequently reappointed by President Barack Obama and Biden.

The existent committee features Biden’s White House property secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, arsenic good arsenic Mike Donilon, Biden’s longtime ally, and Stephanie Cutter, a erstwhile Obama adviser. The treasurer of the center’s committee of trustees is tv shaper Shonda Rhimes, who hosted fundraisers for Biden earlier helium abandoned his reelection bid past summer.

But the existent committee besides features Trump allies, including Pam Bondi, the caller president’s precocious confirmed lawyer general, and Lee Greenwood, whose opus “God Bless the USA,” was the unofficial anthem of Trump’s statesmanlike campaign.

During his archetypal word successful 2019, Trump announced that helium was tapping histrion Jon Voight, a longtime supporter, to the board, on with erstwhile Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who he’s picked arsenic US ambassador to Israel this time.