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The internet is cheering the artists pulling out of Kennedy Center gigs after it turned into another Trump vanity project – 21 standing ovations

Oonagh Keating. Updated December 31st, 2025

With all the warmongering, racism and Epstein cover-up nonsense, you could be forgiven for not noticing that Trump, in his second administration, has been systematically undoing the work and reputation of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

The theatre in Washington D.C. is a memorial to the assassinated president, hosting – until this year – a variety of performances from across the arts world, from individual singers or instrumentalists to large-scale theatrical productions.

We say ‘until this year’ because, in February, Donald Trump stripped the governing board of any liberal-minded members, stuffed it with his cronies, made himself the chair – and declared he was going to “make it great again” with a less woke programme.

He was accidentally true to his word, as a number of acts immediately began to cancel their bookings rather than be associated with the new president.

Trump recently escalated his assault on the Kennedy lecacy, after his Kennedy Center board minions voted to add his name to the building, in front of that of John F. Kennedy. This was Karoline Leavitt’s sycophantic and historically ignorant response.

@PressSec I have just been informed that the highly respected Board of the Kennedy Center, some of the most successful people from all parts of the world, have just voted unanimously to rename the Kennedy Center to the Trump-Kennedy Center, because of the unbelievable work President Trump has done over the last year in saving the building. Not only from the standpoint of its reconstruction, but also financially, and its reputation. Congratulations to President Donald J. Trump, and likewise, congratulations to President Kennedy, because this will be a truly great team long into the future! The building will no doubt attain new levels of success and grandeur.

It’s not a legal change, since only an Act of Congress could achieve that.

In the wake of the Center’s unofficial name change, even more artists have pulled out, including those who would have been involved in a planned New Year performance, forcing its cancellation.

This is what’s known as the ‘find out’ stage.

In true Trump style, the Center’s Maga board members are considering a lawsuit.

The same appointee behind that doomed legal challenge also expressed his disdain for the niche booking *checks notes* Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton, and accused those cancelling of ‘boycotting the arts’..

The wider online world has been sending up a discreet ovation in support of the artists cancelling their bookings, with comments like these.

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