John F. Kennedy’s outspoken niece mocked President Donald Trump over the latest in a string of controversies at the MAGAfied Kennedy Center.
Maria Shriver, 70, mused about the real reason Trump decided to temporarily shutter the once-venerated cultural institution named after her uncle, which the new board recently attempted to rename the “Trump-Kennedy Center.”
The 79-year-old president announced in a Truth Social post on Sunday night that the “tired, broken, and dilapidated” performing arts center in Washington, D.C., will be closed for two years beginning July 4th for “Construction, Revitalization, and Complete Rebuilding.”
“If we don’t close, the quality of Construction will not be nearly as good, and the time to completion, because of interruption from Audiences from the many Events using the Facility, will be much longer,” Trump claimed.
But Shriver wasn’t buying it.
“Translation: It has been brought to my attention that due to the name change (but nobody’s telling me it’s due to the name change), but it’s been brought to my attention that entertainers are canceling left and right, and I have determined that since the name change no one wants to perform there any longer,” she wrote in an X post.
“I’ve determined that due to this change in schedule, it’s best for me to close this center down and rebuild a new center that will bear my name, which will surely get everybody to stop talking about the fact that everybody’s canceling… right?” Shriver went on.
Neither the White House nor the Kennedy Center immediately returned a request for comment on Shriver’s remarks.
The Kennedy Center has struggled to sell tickets since Trump installed himself as chairman and appointed MAGA loyalists to its historically bipartisan board in February last year.
A Washington Post analysis of ticketing data in October, nearly nine months after the Trump takeover, found that sales for the three largest performance venues at the Kennedy Center were the worst they had been in three years—thanks in part to the slew of cancellations by artists and performing groups.
Last week, renowned composer and pianist Philip Glass said he was pulling his world premiere from the Kennedy Center because he felt “an obligation to withdraw this Symphony premiere from the Kennedy Center under its current leadership.”
Also last month, Grammy-winning soprano Renée Fleming backed out due to what the center described as a “scheduling conflict,” the Martha Graham Dance Company—the oldest group of its kind in the U.S.—canceled its April show without providing an explanation, and the Washington National Opera ended its five-decade residency at the Kennedy Center.
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