WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Monday that he's "not ripping down" the Kennedy Center but insisted the performing arts venue needs to shut down for about two years for construction and other work without patrons coming and going and getting in the way.
The comments strongly suggested that he intends to gut the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as part of the process.
“I’m not ripping it down," the Republican president told reporters in the Oval Office. “I’ll be using the steel. So we’re using the structure.”
Such a project would mark the Republican president's latest effort to put his stamp on a cultural institution that Congress designated as a living memorial to President Kennedy, a Democrat. It also would be in addition to attempts to leave a permanent mark on Washington through other projects, the most prominent of which is adding a ballroom to the White House.
Shortly after taking office last year, Trump dismissed Kennedy Center board members who had been appointed by Democratic presidents and replaced them with loyalists, who voted to make him chairman. He helped choose the recipients of the 2025 Kennedy Center Honors, a program he avoided during his first term. He later hosted the event, and the board voted late last year to rebrand the Kennedy Center by adding his name to the building and website.
Trump announced Sunday on social media that he intends to temporarily close the performing arts venue on July 4 for about two years “for Construction, Revitalization, and Complete Rebuilding," subject to board approval.
The announcement followed a wave of cancellations by leading performers, musicians and groups since the president took over leadership of the arts institution. Trump did not mention the cancellations in his announcements, or during his comments Monday.
Recalling his past career in construction and real estate, Trump said, “you want to sit with something for a little while before you decide on what you want to do.” Speaking of the Kennedy Center, he said: “We sat with it. We ran it. It's in very bad shape,” asserting that the building is “run down,” “dilapidated” and “sort of dangerous.”
Roma Daravi, a Kennedy Center spokesperson, said in a social media post that “decades of gross negligence” has led to $250 million of deferred maintenance needs and that temporarily closing the institution “is the most logical choice to allow for comprehensive renovations, efficient project completion, and responsible use of taxpayer dollars.”
Deborah Rutter, the Kennedy Center president who was ousted by Trump, declined comment on Monday. In the past, she has said allegations from Trump and others about the center's management were false.
A representative for David Rubenstein, the board chairman who was also pushed out by Trump, said Rubenstein was not available on Monday to comment.
Trump, citing the complaints of a workman he said has been laying marble at the Kennedy Center, said the closure is needed because "you can't do any work because people are coming in and out.”
He pegged the cost at about $200 million, including the use of “the highest-grade marbles, the highest-grade everything.”
“We’re fully financed and so we’re going to close it and we’re going to make it unbelievable, far better than it ever was, and we’ll be able to do it properly," Trump said.
Congress earmarked $257 million for the Kennedy Center in a tax cut and spending bill that Trump signed into law last summer.
The White House said after the president spoke that some of the maintenance includes work on the building's structural, heating and cooling, plumbing, electrical, fire protection and technical stage systems. Work on the building's exterior, security standards and parking are also included.
Daravi, the Kennedy Center spokesperson, declined comment when asked how the closure would affect the annual Mark Twain Award and Kennedy Center Honors events this year.
Trump said last October, also on social media, that the venue would stay open during construction. But on Monday he said that plan was no longer feasible.
“I was thinking maybe there’s a way of doing it simultaneously but there really isn’t, and we’re going to have something that when it opens it’s going to be brand new, beautiful," Trump said.
“The steel will all be checked out because it’ll be fully exposed,” he said. “It’s been up for a long time, but as anybody knows it was in very bad shape. Wasn’t kept well, before I got there,” he said. “So we’re going to make it, I think there won’t be anything like it in the country.”
The Kennedy Center opened in 1971.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., who in November opened an investigation into the Kennedy Center's financial management, said the planned closure is part of Trump's “demolition tour of Washington.” Whitehouse is the senior Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee, which oversees public buildings, and is an ex-officio member of the Kennedy Center's board.
“If he succeeds, it will be because of a series of suspect and illegal actions to commandeer the Kennedy Center as a clubhouse for his friends and political allies and install leadership who satisfy his every whim," Whitehouse said.
Since Trump returned to the presidency, the Kennedy Center is one of many Washington landmarks that he has sought to overhaul in his second term.
He demolished the White House East Wing and launched a massive $400 million ballroom project, is actively pursuing building a triumphal arch on the other side the Arlington Bridge from the Lincoln Memorial, and has plans for Washington Dulles International Airport.
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Associated Press writers Hillel Italie in New York and Steven Sloan in Washington contributed to this report.
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