President Donald Trump kicked off a Monday dinner for the Kennedy Center board with a dig at their own organization.
“What a group of good friends,” Trump said of Kennedy Center’s leadership as he took the podium at the White House event. “We’re gonna bring this place back. It’s not so good. I thought it was gonna be beautiful.”
The president appeared to be recounting his visit to the legendary arts hub in March, when he lamented that it was in “tremendous disrepair” and went on a litany of everything he wanted to see changed, from the decor to the seats.
The Kennedy Center has been one of many tense battlegrounds in Trump’s bid to remake the federal government in his image. In February, he fired the institution’s board members to name himself chair and install high-profile MAGA figures like Laura Ingraham and Richard Grenell.
“The Kennedy Center was in dire shape,” Trump told the new board on Monday. “It’s been neglected very badly, and it needs an infusion of different things, including probably funds. But I think we’re going to do very well when we get some money from Congress to fix it, because it’s so important.”
The president accused Kennedy Center’s previous leadership of wasting millions of dollars on “rampant political propaganda, DEI, and inappropriate shows.”
“Who thinks of these ideas?” he asked, drawing laughter from the crowd. “It’s different. We’re bringing our country back so fast.”
Trump, a longtime Broadway fan, earlier identified his favorites, including Cats and Phantom of the Opera, as examples of “non-woke” shows that he wanted to promote.
Kennedy Center’s new lineup unveiled Monday includes The Outsiders, Spamalot, Back to the Future, and Moulin Rouge.
Chicago and Mrs. Doubtfire, shows that feature characters usually played by a man crossdressing as a woman, will also be coming to the arts institution despite Trump’s earlier comments criticizing the Kennedy Center for having “featured Drag Shows specifically targeting our youth.”
Trump touted that the Kennedy Center has so far balanced its budget, “eliminated DEI initiatives in all cases, brought back family-friendly programming that will attract large audiences once again, and launched a plan to renovate the building and reclaim the grandeur as a landmark really a Washington landmark—which it always was.”
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