On the morning of Friday, December 19, workers were installing new signage on the exterior of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., to include the name of Donald J. Trump. Photo by Janay Kingsberry/The Washington Post.
In Friday’s (12/19) BBC (London and Washington, D.C.), Kwasi Gyamfi Asieduand and Bernd Debusmann Jr. write, “The board of the Kennedy Center has voted to rename the performing arts Center the Trump-Kennedy Center, according to the White House. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on social media that the board voted unanimously to make the change due to ‘the unbelievable work President Trump has done over the last year in saving the building.’… The change will certainly meet controversy, particularly in Washington D.C., where the center has been an iconic landmark since it was built and named for Kennedy…. Shortly after taking office, Trump fired all the center’s board members, and replaced them with allies, who then voted to make Trump chairman of the board. His close adviser Richard Grenell became board president…. The president also secured about $257m (£192m) in congressional funding to pay for major renovations and other costs … ‘This was not unanimous,’ said Ohio Democratic Representative Joyce Beatty, one of the board’s members. ‘I was muted on the call and not allowed to speak or voice my opposition to this move.’… Senior Democrats on Capitol Hill who, by law, are ex-officio members of the board … said in a statement that ‘federal law established the Center as a memorial to President Kennedy and prohibits changing its name without Congressional action.’ ”
