Trump will keep 'structure' of Kennedy Center intact during $200M in renovations

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: The Hill

02/02/26 5:15 PM ET


President Trump said on Monday he intends to leave the basic structure of the Kennedy Center intact during upcoming renovations which are expected to last two years and cost upwards of $200 million.

“I’m not ripping it down. I’ll be using the steel,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office after announcing a new strategic mineral reserve for the American auto industry. “So we’re using the structure. We’re using some of the marble, and some of the marble comes down. But when it’s open it’ll be brand new and really beautiful,” he added. Trump noted that the renovations are expected to cost $200 million.

The comments come after Trump announced on Sunday that the Kennedy Center, which new the board that took over in the president’s second term voted to rename The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, would be closed for two years for a restoration project.

The announcement, like the name change, has drawn backlash from Trump’s critics and members of the Kennedy family. “While this trespass on the People’s will is painful, President Kennedy would remind us that it is not buildings that define the greatness of a nation. It is the actions of its people and its leaders,” former Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass.), John F. Kennedy’s great-nephew, said in a post on X.

Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/5719313-trump-kennedy-center-renovation/

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REFERENCES

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143609866
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143610123

[vapor2]

1. Does bimbo think any renovation will bring in more performers?

[Lovie777]

2. Not going to happen...........

meanwhile 200 million could help a lot of Americans.

[C_U_L8R]

3. Trump's idea of beautiful

is an overwhelming application of gold tinsel from Home Depot after it's been vomited up by Russian hookers and fermented inside Donald's diapers for two weeks exactly.

[Simeon Salus]

4. He's going to bulldoze the Kennedy Center and put up a giant statue of himself astride the mall

where his statue can piss down the neck of visitors.

[maxsolomon]

5. Shalom Baranes again, probably

What a legacy he's carving for his firm. "We're the Architects who facilitated Trump's vision."

[bluestarone]

6. We are heading towards the most tearing apart EVER after a president leaves office!

I say bury this fucker in a garbage bag!! and dump him in a active volcano, so he's ready for HELL!!!

[LiberalLovinLug]

7. How is he allowed to even poke a hole in wall without the Kennedy families approval?

[KatyaR]

8. Somebody better get that beautiful bust of

President Kennedy out of there before he bulldozes it. My heart would be broken if he destroyed it, but I'm sure that's on his radar.

[ananda]

9. What, just coat it in gold paint and fig leaves?

???

[Uncle Joe]

10. I imagine it will be covered with gaudy gold when he's through with it.

Thanks for the thread BumRushDaShow

[mcar]

11. He'll destroy the amazing JFK exhibit

and the interior architecture that makes it so special. I hate him.

[Diraven]

13. I have a feeling the most of the "renovations"

Will be removal of everything mentioning or showing Kennedy and replacing it with a shrine glorifying Trump.

[mcar]

21. Yes. Damn them all

[Prairie Gates]

12. It will be razed to the ground by St. Patrick's Day

[AverageOldGuy]

14. I don't know how to organize a mass demonstration

As a college student in Alabama in the 1960's I marched in Selma, Montgomery, and Birmingham. Since then I have marched an supported those who marched in all sorts of demonstrations.

As far as I know, you don't have to have a ticket to get into the Kennedy Center but you do have to have tickets to get into a performance.

So -- what would happen in, say, March, if one casual Saturday or Sunday afternoon hundreds of "tourists" started showing up -- in small groups of 2, 3, 4 ,6 ,7 -- each with a backpack or tote bag (with bottled water and sandwiches) and once inside EVERYONE SITS DOWN AND REFUSES TO LEAVE. Hundreds more could sit on the stairs, occupy the lawn, block the garage entrances and refuse to move.

We were told when marching in Alabama to "go limp." Don't move, just lie down and go limp. Make them pick you up. I know from experience it takes four cops to move one person.

No doubt the demonstrators would be removed by DC police or National Guard.

But what it if kept up? Crowds showing up every day, surround the place, allow no vehicles to enter . . . .

Probably not happen but surely someone here on DU has the contacts to make this happen.

We are in our 80s, we live 45 minutes out of DC, our daughter lives on Capitol Hill, we can bunk with her -- she's a high-powered DC attorney so she can get a lot of us out of jail.

Just sayin'.

Or what if a few old, grey-haired couples pulled this stunt? Would hundreds or thousands take the hint and descend on the Kennedy Center an save the place?

[mdbl]

15. It will end up with cheap looking gold shit all over it

Why isn't Congress stopping this? The GOP is always railing about Dems wasting money but not a peep about Dump's egregious spending for no good reason.

[slightlv]

16. Wait a minute...

we can't spend any of our tax dollars to help people afford healthcare and their meds... or help everyone afford food now that the tariffs have screwed us all... but we're so awash in OUR money that he feels free to kill the WH East Wing, renovate the Kennedy Center, AND built a huge ass Hitler-arch to himself. Kennedy Center says $200M... the East Wing is way above that... and by the time they get the gold plating onto that stupid arch (you KNOW he's gonna want that!), he will have absolutely bankrupted the country just to leave his name all over the trash in the city. It'll cost at least that much and twice more to tear it down and rebuild our institutions reflecting grace and good trash. I'm so tired of his gilt-loaded white trash ideas.

If he's going to spend all this money on everything I don't agree with... then, I'm gonna do a MAGA and scream for MY tax dollars back to me to spend as I see fit. I'm not giving him a wink and nod with my money to kill people via ICE, or put out complete surveillance teams on everyone in the U.S., ala Musk. Enough is enough. Cut off his money. If he wants shit, HE can pay for it (if he actually has any liquid assets, that is).

[Harker]

17. Waste. Fraud. Abuse.

[jgmiller]

18. Serious question

The Kennedy family and certainly Maria Shriver alone has more than enough money and connections to do to Trump exactly what he always tries to do to everyone else, sue, sue, sue. So why haven't they done exactly that yet? I know they don't own the center but the public does and since they are part of the public they should pile on the lawsuits on him. They can slow this insanity down until he is gone or until he decides he's bored with it. Just constantly letting him come up with these idiotic plans and saying "You can't do that!" doesn't do anything. Use his own methods against him.

[mdbl]

19. I agree

At least it will keep Dump in the bad spotlight.

[mountain grammy]

20. Don't let the madman destroy the Kennedy Center.

[purr-rat beauty]

22. Trump is a locust

Along with every other pestilence

[efhmc]

23. Not one thing that beserko ever makes is beautiful.

[Blues Heron]

24. It's toast, he's going to flatten it like the east wing. He is insane and evil.

But you can’t kill an idea and the spirit of the memorial will live on somehow some way.

[LisaM]

25. Why does he have any say over it at all?

I don't recall previous Presidents interfering with DC infrastructure.

[Klarkashton]

26. More bribes from billionaires.

Pallets of cash that years from now will be "where did it go?"

[Scalded Nun]

27. I sure hope that someone is keeping tabs on EVERY FUCKING THING he is twisting, destroying, remaking, etc.

Every penny needs to be recovered, to include the cost of returning things to their previous state.

[area51]

28. PEDOnald: "I'm not ripping it down."

Since he lies all the time, and claimed he wouldn't touch the east wing, yet he detroyed it, he may indeed be planning to tear it down.

[woodsprite]

29. Just like the East Wing renovation.... nt

[LudwigPastorius]

30. "Trump will keep 'structure' of Kennedy Center intact during $200M in renovations"

He will not "keep the structure". He will demolish it.

It won't cost $200M. It will be double that, at least.

He will have his name carved in marble on a structurally necessary wall, so that it will be harder to remove it, unlike the current lettering.

[lees1975]

31. How is this allowed?

Seriously?

No one in this country has any balls.

[MissHoneychurch]

32. We all can imagine

how this will look after those "renovations". All tacky and over the top and ugly as hell. And I am sure the concert halls will all be named after Trump and his family.

[usonian]

33. Inspired by a movie set.

CALIGULA