Changes At the Kennedy Center

Floor Speech

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Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today because of something deeply troubling that is happening to one of the most treasured cultural institutions in our country, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Yes, it is the John F. Kennedy Center.

Over the weekend, the President announced on Truth Social, of course, that he intends to shut down the Kennedy Center for approximately 2 years for so-called renovations. Since then, he has talked about leaving the building's steel fully exposed, raising questions about whether this is a renovation at all or something far more drastic.

Let's take a step back. The Kennedy Center is not a private real estate project. It is not a campaign prop. It is not a vanity playground for demolition. It is a national cultural institution, created by Congress in 1958, and later dedicated to President John F. Kennedy after his death. It opened in 1971 as a living memorial to a man who believed the arts were essential to democracy itself. The name, the mission, the existence all come from statute, law. No social media post, no board reshuffle, and no personal declaration has the legal authority to change that.

For more than 50 years, the Kennedy Center has been a place where Americans of every background could come together to experience excellence in music, theater, dance, and culture. It was built to foster national unity, artistic expression, and America's creative spirit, not to feed the ego of a single individual.

Unfortunately, over the past year, we have watched the systematic takeover, with board members fired, loyalists installed, programming politicized, and artists walking away in droves. The consequences were immediate.

Though Donald Trump's hand-picked leadership has been suspiciously tight-lipped about the Center's finances, they reportedly oversaw an 82 percent decline in theater subscriptions, a 57 percent drop in ballet packages, and a $1.6 million loss in ticket sales in just a matter of months.

The decline was not because the building had suddenly become dangerous. It is because artists and audiences rejected what the Kennedy Center has been becoming. Now, rather than reverse course, the President's solution is to close it for 2 years?

According to reporting this week, many board members, staff, performers, and even Trump-appointed officials were blindsided by this announcement. There was no plan presented, no consultation, no transparency.

The New York Times reports that budget documents describe needed maintenance, yes, but nothing that required shutting down the entire institution. In fact, the very official overseeing facilities said that just 2 months ago, there were no serious discussions about closing the Center.

What changed? What changed is that the Center could no longer sustain programming. Artists were pulling out, performances were being canceled, ticket sales were collapsing. With every bad story detailing what the Center has become under President Trump's control, the more of a headache and source of embarrassment it became for the President.

Now this renovation begins to look less like infrastructure work and more like a cover story for institutional failure.

As the top Democrat of the Appropriations Subcommittee that oversees the Kennedy Center's funding, I can tell you this: We have repeatedly asked for financial information, for meetings, for transparency about what is happening inside the center. Our requests have been ignored.

That should alarm every Member of this body because this is not just about a building. It is about whether Congress is going to allow a President to seize control of a congressionally created institution, run it into the ground, and then unilaterally shut it down without oversight.

Sadly, this is part of a much broader pattern. We have seen this administration's attacks on the National Endowment for the Arts, their attacks on the National Endowment for the Humanities, their interference in museums, including the Smithsonian, their political litmus tests for cultural programming, and now the attempted transformation of the Kennedy Center into a monument to one man's personal brand.

The Kennedy Center is the only memorial in Washington dedicated to President John F. Kennedy, a President who believed that art belonged to the American people, a President who believed culture was a public good. This takeover, and the incompetence that has come with it, is an insult to that legacy.

The law is very clear: The Kennedy Center's name and mission are established by statute. Changing that requires an act of Congress, and I will do everything in my power to make sure this institution stays the way it is.

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