Scandal: A series examining corruption in leadership and its downstream consequences.
The president remade its board and became chairman. Artists withdrew, revenue fell, a fight over his name reached federal court and the center entered an uncertain period of closure and renovation.
For more than half a century, the Kennedy Center operated as the nation’s performing arts center and a living memorial to John F. Kennedy. Less than two years after President Trump overhauled its board, its main building is closed.
The shutdown followed months of legal fights, falling revenue and increasingly direct involvement by the president in the institution’s management.
Trump remade the Kennedy Center’s board in February 2025, removing Biden-era trustees and installing allies. The new board elected him chairman. The New York Times reported that he became the first sitting president to hold the post.
Artists began pulling out. The producers of “Hamilton” canceled a planned 2026 run after objecting to what they described as the center’s new partisan direction. The Washington Post reported that more than 20 productions had been canceled or postponed, though the reasons varied.
“Laws are like spiders’ webs; the big flies get through, while the little ones are caught.”
— Honoré de Balzac, The Firm of Nucingen (1838)
Scandal examines political misconduct, institutional failure, elite impunity and the systems that allow powerful people to escape accountability.
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