Republicans looks to rename entire Kennedy Center after Trump

[Initech]

Republicans have proposed a bill to rename the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts after President Donald Trump.

Republican Representative Bob Onder of Missouri introduced the bill on Wednesday, which would rename the iconic Washington, D.C. institution to the “Donald J. Trump Center for the Performing Arts.” The center is currently named for former President John F. Kennedy, who served in the White House from 1961 to 1963, when he was assassinated.

The bill is called the “Make Entertainment Great Again Act,” in a spin on Trump’s campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.” Onder described Trump as “a patron of the arts and a staple of the pop-culture landscape” in a statement announcing the bill.

“You would be hard pressed to find a more significant cultural icon in the past 40 years than President Trump,” Onder said. “President Trump’s love and mastery of entertainment has stood the test of time and allowed him to capture Americans’ attention for decades.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/kennedy-center-rename-trump-melania-b2797537.html

Fuck these morons. The rapist doesn't deserve anything named after him. He deserves to be thrown in the dumpster and forgotten about for the remainder of time. The GOP is out of their damn minds.

[tanyev]

1. They can get all the latest touring productions from Branson.

😒

[3catwoman3]

2. What a sick joke. To name anything associated with arts and culture...

…after one of the least cultured people on the planet is blasphemous.

[Initech]

14. I know, right?

I feel like MAGA has truly lost the plot. Not that they ever had it to begin with.

[2MuchNoise]

3. "President Trump's love and mastery of entertainment has stood the test of time"

Boy, they really do live in a completely different world than us.

[cloudbase]

4. Onder can fellate Trump on the capitol steps at noon.

That would provide some entertainment, and both of them would probably enjoy it.

[malaise]

5. Whatever

It will all be undone in due course

[Initech]

11. This is just some bullshit to get whatever rep that proposed it airtime on the Fox Squawk Box.

[Cha]

6. I wondered when that was coming.

Traitor has to have his Pedophile name on EVERYTHING.

[Nanjeanne]

7. Well I've always said The Apprentice was a cultural highlight of my lifetime.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

8. Call it the Trump Dump

[badhair77]

9. He doesn't build or create anything. .

He just tears things down or slaps his name on things. I loathe him.

[struggle4progress]

10. Don't miss any of our shows! Buy* your 2026 Season Tickets** now!

*25% of all ticket sales are sent to the Trump Family Charity as licensing fees for use of the Trump name

**The ten individuals who spend the most on season tickets will be invited to a private dinner with the President

All the Golf Club Championships I won (An evening with Donald Trump)

Nobody has been Time's Man of the Year more than me! (An evening with Donald Trump)

My Uncle Fred taught at MIT and I never even ever heard of Epstein (An evening with Donald Trump)

[ITAL]

12. The fawning is becoming performance art

[LetMyPeopleVote]

13. Renaming the Kennedy Center for Donald and Melania Trump would violate the law that created it

The Kennedy Center can’t include new memorials or plaques — for donors or presidents — under U.S. law. Republicans would need to change that to rename it for the Trumps.

Renaming the Kennedy Center for Donald and Melania Trump would violate the law that created it

www.nbcnews.com/politics/don...

— Amanda Terkel (@aterkel.bsky.social) 2025-07-29T13:21:42.628Z

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/renaming-kennedy-center-donald-melania-trump-violate-law-created-rcna221505

Three former board members for the Kennedy Center told NBC News that the law creating the center prohibited any of the facilities from being renamed, other than the Eisenhower Theater, after the president whose administration first authorized its construction in 1958. The project stalled and was revived under President John F. Kennedy, whose family led an effort to get the center built and named in his honor following his assassination. Two months later, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the legislation making it a living memorial to Kennedy.

According to U.S. code, “After December 2, 1983, no additional memorials or plaques in the nature of memorials shall be designated or installed in the public areas of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.”

Republicans would have to pass legislation to change that. “Legally, they can’t just slap her name on it without congressional action,” said a spokesperson for Rep. Chellie Pingree of Maine, the lead Democrat on the Appropriations subcommittee on the interior.

“If Republicans can’t pass their budget — which they usually can’t — the Melania Trump renaming provision dies,” the spokesperson continued. “The only real wildcard is whether Trump or his allies ignore the law entirely and try to do it unilaterally. But that would have no legal basis — and would almost certainly trigger a court fight.”.....

President Kennedy’s grandson Jack Schlossberg posted strong criticism of the opera house’s renaming proposal last week. Schlossberg, Caroline Kennedy’s son, wrote, “JFK believed the arts made our country great and could be our most effective weapon in the fight for civil rights and against authoritarian governments around the world,” adding, “The Trump administration stands for freedom of oppression, not expression.”

[LetMyPeopleVote]

15. Maddow Blog-Make Entertainment Great Again Act: Republican wants to rename Kennedy Center for Trump

Last edited Tue Jul 29, 2025, 02:43 PM - Edit history (1)

One historian recently described the Republican effort to name a bunch of stuff after the incumbent president as “pretty crazy.”

The latest list pro-Trump GOP bills:
- naming the Kennedy Center after him
- naming DC metro trains after him
- putting him on 0 & 0 bills
- naming Dulles Airport after him
- making his birthday a holiday
- adding him to Mt Rushmore
As one historian put it, this is getting “pretty crazy.”

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2025-07-29T16:47:18.281Z

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/make-entertainment-great-act-republican-wants-rename-kennedy-center-tr-rcna221747

Last week, Republican Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho tucked a provision into a spending bill that would name the Kennedy Center’s opera house after first lady Melania Trump. NBC News reported on a related idea about her husband.

The next day, Rep. Bob Onder, R-Mo., introduced the ‘Make Entertainment Great Again Act’ to rename the whole center the ‘Donald J. Trump Center for Performing Arts.’ The House has not yet taken any action on it.

...But what I continue to care about is the broader partisan pattern: GOP officials have invested a truly bizarre amount of time and energy into pushing sycophantic legislation designed to flatter the incumbent president. The list includes:

a bill to create a $250 bill that would feature Trump’s face;

a similar bill that would put Trump’s face on $100 bills;

a bill to make Trump’s birthday a federal holiday;

a bill to carve Trump’s face into Mount Rushmore;

a bill to rename Washington Dulles International Airport after Trump;

a bill to name the Washington, D.C., subway system after Trump and his MAGA slogan;

and now a bill name the Kennedy Center after Trump.

What’s more, this list doesn’t include related efforts from the president’s sycophantic allies, including measures to nominate Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize and to allow Trump to seek a third term.....

As The New York Times recently summarized, “A competition of sorts has broken out for whom the Republican base will see as the most pro-Trump member.” From the article:

The rush of flattering legislation, some of which even the lawmakers concede is unlikely to pass, stands apart from merely carrying out Mr. Trump’s agenda. ... ‘It shows the power that Donald Trump has within the Republican Party these days, and that Republican members want to stay on his good side,’ said Sean M. Theriault, government professor at the University of Texas at Austin. ‘A lot of these people are in really safe districts, but they’re also thinking about what their next step is. And so if they have designs on being in the Senate or running for governor or even a position in the administration, then there’s no better way to get on his good side than to do these over-the-top moves toward him.’

.....I’m reminded anew of something Filipe Campante, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, said about these efforts: “The reason why this is bad is the very fact that it’s transparently ridiculous: It shows how this is becoming a Kim Jong-Un-style cult of personality, where the sycophants try to outdo one another in their groveling to get the attention of Dear Leader.”