This put up was initially printed on The Washington Informer
By WI Internet Workers
After purging earlier members and reshaping the Kennedy Heart Board, taking on as board chairman and placing his title on the constructing final yr, President Donald Trump has made one other main announcement for the world-renowned arts venue: quickly closing it for 2 years on July 4.
Whereas the president mentioned the choice to shut is because of “development, revitalization and full rebuilding,” the announcement comes after a number of artists and organizations canceled performances and residencies after Trump’s 2025 takeover of the middle, inflicting ticket gross sales to considerably plummet.
“[Trump’s] closing the Kennedy Heart he says is to make it higher,” social media consumer Dr. Cynthia Alease Smith, an anti-racism educator and essayist, wrote on X, previously generally known as Twitter. “He’s closing it down as a result of he destroyed it and doesn’t need the embarrassment anymore.”
In late October, The Washington Put up revealed that unsold tickets from Sept. 3 to Oct. 19 have been at 43%, compared to 7% on the identical time the earlier yr.
That was 9 months into Trump’s presidency.
Then, in December, Trump renamed the venue — which formally opened in 1971 as a memorial to late President John F. Kennedy — by including his title.
Regardless of reporting low viewership in 2024 — with greater than 4 million individuals tuning in — fewer individuals watched the Kennedy Heart Honors on Dec. 23, with Nielsen reporting a 25% lower from final yr to about 3.01 million in 2025.
For a lot of, the president’s latest transfer to shut the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Heart for the Performing Arts has extra to do with low ticket gross sales and continued pushback from artists and audiences alike.
“Just a few weeks in the past, Trump mentioned he ‘saved the Kennedy Heart,’ and now it’s closing down for 2 years,” incapacity activist Ola Ojewumi wrote on X. “He’s embarrassed that nobody desires to carry out at a venue named after him. He closed it down because the low gross sales and efficiency cancellations remind him how hated he’s.”
The president mentioned he plans to shut the venue on July 4, in honor of the nation’s 250th anniversary, and start development of a “new and spectacular leisure advanced,” noting that financing is “totally in place.”
“This vital resolution, primarily based on enter from many extremely revered specialists, will take a drained, damaged, and dilapidated heart, one which has been in unhealthy situation, each financially and structurally for a few years, and switch it right into a world-class bastion of arts, music, and leisure, much better than it has ever been earlier than,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Reality Social. “America shall be very happy with its new and delightful landmark for a lot of generations to come back.”
Nonetheless, individuals resembling Jack Schlossberg, the late president’s grandson, are talking out.
“He can change the title, shut the doorways, and demolish the constructing. He can attempt to kill JFK,” Schlossberg, a Democratic candidate for New York’s twelfth Congressional District, wrote on X. “However JFK is saved alive by us now rising as much as take away Donald Trump, carry him to justice, and restore the freedoms generations fought for.”
The put up President Donald Trump Says Kennedy Heart to Shut for Two Years appeared first on The Washington Informer.
