President\u00a0Donald Trump<\/a>\u00a0is sharing why he\u2019s setting his sights on the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.<\/p>\n While taking questions aboard Air Force One en route to the\u00a02025 Super Bowl<\/a>\u00a0on Sunday, Feb. 9, Trump was asked about the reason behind his stunning plan to fire the board of the national cultural center and\u00a0name himself chairman<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to make sure it runs properly,\u201d Trump said. \u201cWe don\u2019t need woke at the Kennedy Center, and we don\u2019t need \u2014 some of the shows were terrible. They were a disgrace that they were even put on.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo I\u2019ll be there until such time that it is running right,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n A reporter asked a follow up question about whether he had \u201cseen any shows there,\u201d to which the president responded, \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI get reports they were so bad\u2026 I didn\u2019t want to go,\u201d he explained. \u201cThere was nothing I wanted to see.\u201d<\/p>\n On Monday, Feb. 10, Trump announced on\u00a0Truth Social<\/a>\u00a0that his special envoy for special missions, Richard Grenell, would be the interim executive director of the Kennedy Center, writing: “NO MORE DRAG SHOWS, OR OTHER ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA \u2014 ONLY THE BEST. RIC, WELCOME TO SHOW BUSINESS!”<\/p>\n The Kennedy Center’s board of trustees is appointed by the president, though its chair is usually appointed by the board, according to\u00a0Reuters<\/a>\u00a0and the Kennedy Center itself.<\/p>\n Trump previously announced his plans to replace previous Chair David M. Rubenstein on Truth Social on Friday, Feb. 7.<\/p>\n He wrote, in part, on the social media platform, \u201cI have decided to immediately terminate multiple individuals from the Board of Trustees, including the Chairman, who do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture. We will soon announce a new Board, with an amazing Chairman, DONALD J. TRUMP!\u201d<\/p>\n Trump once again cited that his reasoning behind the decision stemmed from \u201cdrag shows specifically targeting our youth\u201d that the Kennedy Center hosted last year. He added, \u201cTHIS WILL STOP.\u201d<\/p>\n In response to Trump\u2019s post, the Kennedy Center \u2014 which receives federal funding \u2014 issued a statement on Feb. 7, saying in part: “The Kennedy Center is aware of the post made recently by POTUS on social media. We have received no official communications from the White House regarding changes to our board of trustees. We are aware that some members of our board have received termination notices from the administration.\u201d<\/p>\n “Per the Center\u2019s governance established by Congress in 1958, the chair of the board of trustees is appointed by the Center\u2019s board members,\u201d the statement continued. \u201cThere is nothing in the Center\u2019s statute that would prevent a new administration from replacing board members; however, this would be the first time such action has been taken with the Kennedy Center\u2019s board.\u201d<\/p>\n Rubenstein, 75, was set to retire in January 2025, but extended his role at the Kennedy Center until September 2026 following Trump’s election, per\u00a0The New York Times<\/em><\/a>. Trump notably has some history with the arts center as well, previously breaking tradition by opting out of attending the Kennedy Center Honors in 2016, the\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0The Hill<\/em><\/a>\u00a0reported.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The president, who unexpectedly named himself chairman of the Kennedy Center’s board on Feb. 7, says he’s received secondhand “reports” that the performing arts theater has bad programming … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21476,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21475"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21477,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21475\/revisions\/21477"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"U.S.](\"https:\/\/people.com\/thmb\/-4oPLhf0cTzQmPXQuKerEatSxHI=\/4000x0\/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(1265x375:1267x377):format(webp)\/Donald-Trump-addresses-the-2025-Republican-Issues-Conference-at-the-Trump-013125-f8dd5b8b1b9c4e2d9394bf7a335da89e.jpg\")
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