President Trump and the first lady, Melania Trump, are scheduled to attend the opening night performance of “Les Misérables” at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Wednesday night.
In some sense it is the culmination of the Trump takeover of the national cultural center. The president appointed himself chairman of the Kennedy Center in February, purged the traditionally bipartisan board and restocked it with loyalists. In March, he took a tour and met with his new board. “We’re going to get some very good shows,” he said at the time. “I guess we have ‘Les Miz’ coming.”
Mr. Trump’s tightening grip has upset a number of artists, and some members of the cast were expected to boycott the performance.
“Les Misérables” has long been one of Mr. Trump’s favorite shows, and the opening on Wednesday was expected to be a big night out on the town for the president’s friends and top allies, complete with a red carpet.
The flashy outing, to a musical with its climactic moments celebrating an anti-government uprising, coincides with one of the most volatile weeks of Mr. Trump’s second term.
Mr. Trump’s administration has sent soldiers from the California National Guard and the Marines into Los Angeles in response to days of protests over immigration raids.
Those deployments — over the objections of state and local officials there — has set off an extraordinary standoff between Mr. Trump and California’s governor, Gavin Newsom. In a televised address on Tuesday night, Mr. Newsom accused Mr. Trump of mounting an attack on democracy: “The moment we’ve feared has arrived.”
Shawn McCreesh is a White House reporter for The Times covering the Trump administration.
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