At the same time that government workers were affixing Donald Trump’s name to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a former House Republican expressed his disgust with the power play and said it will hurt the party.
Appearing with MS NOW host Ana Cabrera, ex-Rep Charlie Dent (R-PA) said the naming change will face an uphill battle because it will require Senate approval for the permanent change and that is not a war Republicans need as the party is struggling.
On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced that Trump’s hand-picked center board had voted to add his name before former President John F. Kennedy’s, which, in turn, set off a wave of outrage.
Not wasting any time, the Kennedy Center’s webpage was updated in less than 12 hours and, on Friday, workers showed up to make the physical signage changes.
That led Dent to tell the MS NOW host, “It strikes me that, you know, he [Trump] is, you know, obsessed with these matters that are not central to why he is president of the United States. And [Former Rep] Max Rose is correct, in order to change the name of the of the U.S. Institute of Peace, and certainly the Kennedy Center would require an act of Congress.”
“Can you imagine the outrage if Democrats just simply renamed Reagan National Airport by a vote of the airport authority? If they said, ’We’re going to change the name to the Biden-Reagan National Airport or the Obama-Reagan National Airport’?’ There would be an outrage.”
“And of course, it would require something, a congressional action,” he pointed out. “And what’s so disturbing is usually these types of honors are meant for people, you know, who have already served, who have left office. We don’t do it, we don’t make, we don’t name buildings for sitting presidents or other sitting elected officials. It’s just not the American tradition.”
“So I think the president is really in a bad place here politically,” he continued. “This is not helping him or the Republican Party. And by the way, the votes, I don’t believe, are there to pass this because obviously it would require a 60-vote threshold in the Senate to change the name of the Kennedy Center. So this is bad on all counts.”
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