Bulwark Takes - BOMBSHELL: The Kennedy Center Isn’t Closed For “Renovations”—It’s Bankrupt! (w/ Josef Palermo)

Episode Date: April 22, 2026

Sonny Bunch speaks with whistleblower Josef Palermo, who saw the collapse of the Kennedy Center from the inside. The Kennedy Center president Ric Grenell and the Trump administration said the shutdown was about renovations. But Palermo says the real story is financial collapse, political interference, and a dramatic shift away from the institution’s mission. From six-figure ticket markups to a fundraising pitch delivered during an October 7 memorial, Palermo lays out how things went wrong and how fast it happened.Read more from Josef Palermo: https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026/04/inside-kennedy-center-shutdown-drama/686801/

With the Greenworks commercial battery powered lawn equipment, Landscapers get 82 volts of pure power. Greenworks commercial products now at Coy Brothers. K-O-O-O-O-Y, B-R-O-S dot com. Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Bullwork. My name is Sunny Buncham, I'm culture editor at the Bullwark. And I'm very pleased to be joined today by Joseph Palermo. We're going to be talking about a piece he wrote in the Atlantic about the collapse of the Kennedy Center.

You saw this from the inside. And it's a story that's near and dear to my heart, as again, the culture editor I spent a fair amount of time at the, Kennedy Center, just going to events, frankly, just going to enjoy the performances and the art and everything that is there. And it has been distressing to watch it, you know, kind of get pulled down from the inside by this current Trump administration. Joseph, thanks for, thanks for being on today. Thank you for having me. So I want to talk about this piece because first, can you just let folks know how you got involved with the Kennedy Center? Because you were not there before the

administration, you actually kind of pitched yourself to Rick Rennel. How did that come about? Yeah, sure, absolutely. So I had been working with a different nonprofit on a project that we were putting together for America's 250th anniversary this year for the National Mall. The foundation that was financing the project in March of last year decided to withdraw their funding. It was just sort of a reassessment of their funding priorities in the wake of the election results in 2024. So around that time, I saw that, you know, Rick Ronell had become head of the Kennedy Center. And I just figured I would, you know, reach out.

I had been developing this project for about a year, year and a half at that point. And so I, you know, wanted to produce the project nonetheless. And I reached out to see if they might be interested at the Kennedy Center and hosting it as part of their own America 250 celebrations. And, you know, one of the things that you mentioned early on is you're not a Trump guy, you're not a MAGA guy. You, you know, you are, you kind of pitched yourself as, hey, look, I'm not, you know, that's not my world. And they were, they were maybe more interested as a result. It seemed that way. You know, I pitched my project.

And at the end of the pitch meeting, I was told by the deputy who I met with, you know, they'd love to have my project. But they'd also love to have me because Rick Rinell wanted to establish a visual arts program at the Kennedy Center. to give visitors to the center something to see and experience when they weren't there to view a show. And so at the end of that meeting, when he made that preliminary offer, I said to him, you know, I just need to be up front with you. I don't want to waste your time. Certainly don't want to waste mine. I've, you know, never voted for Donald Trump. I will probably never vote for anything Trump-related. But, you know, if you're serious about wanting my project and me, you know, that's just what you need to know. I think this is important because, you know, there are people, you write about having a friend who called you a Nazi collaborator for going to work there.

But, you know, at the same time, and this is something that's going to maybe get me in trouble with my readers, my listeners, I understand this impulse to want to protect the institution of the Kennedy Center, even under Donald Trump, right? You can see the different. There's a huge difference between how the Kennedy Center was treated in the first administration and the second administration here. and everything seems to have kind of fallen apart the more Donald Trump inserted himself into the proceedings. Yeah, I mean, that's correct. He, you know, he established himself as chairman of the board. He replaced David Rubenstein. And Donald Trump, as chairman of the board, was doing things that David Rubinstein would never. Donald Trump was making these, you know, just terrible comments about the art and artists who were there. He made edicts banning, you know, drag performances. And he was just doing. doing a lot of things that a typical chairman on the board shouldn't and wouldn't do.

When you say shouldn't and wouldn't do, I want to dive into this because it gets into some of the politicization of the institution itself. And specifically, I want to get into some of the fundraising stuff because the shift in fundraising strategies jumps out at me as particularly egregious and kind of in line with how the rest of his operation has worked over the last, well, for the first four years of the Trump administration, and now, you know, we're now, you know, a year and a half into the most recent one. It seemed almost like a graft is the wrong word, because it's probably not going directly in his pocket.

But it definitely seemed like, hey, we're going to give us money and we'll give you things, which is, you know, not how an arts center should work. I completely agree. And that was one of my earliest red flags was just the way that they seemed to be positioning the proximity to Donald Trump. that access and the selling of it, if you will, for donations to the Kennedy Center. It just seemed that's not my understanding of how we do things in the nonprofit arts sector at all. Well, let's talk about specifically some of the things at the Kennedy Center that shifted and changed.

I mean, you have a long section about the treatment of the lounges. What happened there? They've been there since the center opened for over 50 years. They were gifts by different countries from around the world. It was everything from the Chinese lounge, the Israel lounge. There was a Russian lounge prior to the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. There was the African room, which was probably one of my favorites. That was something like 32 countries in Africa came together to sponsor this lounge.

So what that meant was these were lounges that were, when I say sponsored, it was gifts of art that were in those spaces. There were funds that were given to the Kennedy Center to support them. and they were tributes to cultural diplomacy, which was part of the legacy of President John F. Kennedy. And so for many years, through a succession of leaders at the Kennedy Center, those lounges were retained for those tributes to cultural diplomacy. But when Rick Rinell came in, he decided that he wanted to affix corporate names to them. He wanted to start selling them off to individual donors, to have their own naming, put on

these lounges. And in my view, that's a desecration of what those lounges represent and the gifts that those lounges are to the American people by way of the Kennedy Center. There was one in particular that essentially they sold off the naming rights to a guy who was pardoned by Trump after getting convicted of corruption. What was that story all about? So, yeah, that's the now CyberJets lounge. It's just off the box tier level of the opera house at the Kennedy Center. Center. It's a space that prior to being the CyberJets Lounge was known as the that's the old Russian lounge, by the way. So then after it was the Russian lounge, it became

the Circles Lounge, which is circles as a dedicated membership for people who give recurring donations to the Kennedy Center. So the CyberJets Lounge came in. There was a Grinnell deputy who was in charge of like brokering that deal. He brought in this guy, I believe His name is Trevor Milton. He's the CEO of the CyberJets Company. And, yeah, they basically let this man and his wife, who I understand designed the new space. They gutted it. I actually have photos in my phone still that show that the lounge was gutted.

And then they redesigned it, renovated it to their own specifications. And, yeah, it's really sad. I find it to be a travesty. There's another portion where you talk about paying for access to a lay-miss performance to sit in the presence of Donald Trump, which again, you know, is what was, it was some absurd amount of money to sit in the box? What was it? It was $2 million. And then I had been told that there were tickets on the orchestra level for $100,000 for the same performance. And the six figures was merely just a markup

because Donald Trump happened to be in the room. That's wild. That's wild. And of course, you know, there's nothing that Donald Trump likes more than people paying to be in his presence. It's one of his real kinks. Let's talk about Rick Rinell himself because he is a fascinating figure. You know, he wanted to be Secretary of State. He didn't get that.

He got kind of thrown the bone of the Kennedy Center. But he didn't seem to really understand how to, say, program a year's worth of performances or to raise the money that was his. What was his leadership style like from your perspective? Well, from my perspective, he was never in the office to be a leader. We only saw him on weeks where there were red carpet events. And so he really delegated a lot of things to this executive team that he brought in, who were all of his cronies from his various other endeavors. And none of them, first of all, had any arts experience. arts management experience.

And it didn't seem to me that they had any particular personal affinities for the arts outside of celebrities and red carpets. And it was for me challenging, working with them because I would try to present my projects and try to showcase the artistic merit and why I think we should produce them and why I should have resources allocated to them. And I just went nowhere because these guys, they didn't care. And I think that goes back to the top. I don't think Rick Rinal himself cared. There was, I think, somebody reported this, maybe the Wall Street Journal. I don't recall off the top of my head, but they asked him. Somebody asked him in an interview, you know, what is it that you like about the arts?

And his response was simply celebrities. And, of course, the Kennedy Center Honors has now, you know, kind of devolved into this weird thing that Donald Trump hosts, which is not a thing. the president has done. The president, you know, sometimes would come to the Kennedy Center honors and, you know, but actually emceeing the event and, you know, choosing a bunch of people who are very clearly Trump supporters. It does not seem to be in line historically with the nature and the goal of that event and the Kennedy Center itself. Yeah, I mean, the honors was, was honestly quite a mess. I write in my piece for the Atlantic just what the scene was like before the ceremony actually started, they had people come early for security, you know, enhanced security procedures.

And so the grand foyer outside of the opera house was just packed with people. So it was getting very hot. You had people, the bars were set up for the reception after the ceremony, but they didn't allow people to have water from these bars. And so it just became a very chaotic scene with, you know, people stealing beverages from, from the bars or, you know, fighting with the catering staff to try to get something to drink. And while they're wearing, like, tuxitos and ball gowns, it was, it was pretty, pretty much a farce. And then, of course, once we got into the ceremony, to your point, Donald Trump came out and emceived the ceremony. And I think, again, started to politicize what that ceremony actually is. And it's,

You know, yes, the president of the United States, the sitting president does attend that event, but the president is never the focal point of that event. It's the honorees who are being celebrated for their contributions to the American arts. And so, yeah, I just, I felt that the honor ceremony was, was a bit of a joke itself. The president was never the focal point. And that is the real frustration, I think, a lot of folks have certainly this time around compared to the first. I mean, this is at the Kennedy Center honors, right? This is where he kind of floated the idea of, maybe I'll put Trump on the name on the building.

I'll put my name on the building. You know, I've got so many hotels, what it seems to do, which is insane. That's an insane thing to suggest and then to do. Yeah, that's correct. That was the first time we heard it from him himself saying that, yeah. I have to, so I don't know how much insight you have into this. You don't get into this in your piece.

Maybe this was, you know, other, other, but was that something that Rick Rinell heard and was like, oh, you know what, that's actually a good way to get in even better with Donald Trump. Or was I like, or was it, you know, did this come from Trump himself? Was he like, actually, I wasn't joking. I really want to have my name on the front of the building. Like I, this whole thing is so insane to me that I cannot stop fixating on it. Yeah.

It's been my understanding in what I was told that, you know, Donald Trump actually did not explicitly request to have his name added to the center. and that that was something that Rick did as a sycophant, quite honestly. I was told that he did that to give Melania, Mrs. Trump, you know, the name of the building as she walked into it for her film premiere, you know, several weeks later. As I joked at the time, how did they get the venue for that premiere? It was a, you know, a real, it was a real mystery. How did FIFA get that venue? How did CPAC get that venue?

How did News Nation get that? that venue. That's all good questions. Yeah. It's a real, it's such a, it's such a ridiculous mess and just corrupt nonsense. One episode in particular that jumped out at me is particularly galling, which was Grinnell's effort to fundraise off the back of an October 7th memorial. What happened there? Yeah. So I, we had received outside funding to, to host an exhibition of art that commemorated the October 7th attack. And I found an American Israeli artist whose son was actually at the Nova Festival when it was attacked. And thank God his son survived.

But nonetheless, this artist had painted a series of work that really sort of characterize his experiences of that day. And so we hosted this opening reception to welcome people into the space and to see the work for the first. time and there were opening remarks as part of this. And Rick Grinnell, he used his time to essentially wag a finger at all of the people that were assembled in attendance and, you know, let it be known that he's selling off lounges. And if the people in this room wanted this particular space to remain the Israeli lounge, then they needed to pony up the money to do so. And quite honestly, I was disgusted, I was offended. And I felt that this was not at all

the time or the place to be conducting such a strong armed fundraising pitch. It's grotesque. It's grotesque. The, you know, the, the, that, I almost, I'm just speechless.

Let's skip, let's skip ahead to the end. Because the end is, is pretty interesting here in terms of what is happening now at the Kennedy Center. So a few months back, Donald Trump comes out and he says, puts out a release, he says, we're shutting down the Kennedy Center for two years. After July 4th to celebrate Cessquicentennial, we're going to reopen. It's going to be the finest performing arts facility in the world. It needs massive renovations. And everyone, well, the few people I have talked to have said, yes, there are renovations that need to be done. There's no need to shut the whole thing down. The reason they're shutting the whole thing down is,

because they could not book programming for a year's worth of shows. They could not book the symphony. They could not book the opera has left. The traveling stage performances don't want to come here. So is this a shutdown to repair the building? Or is it a shutdown because they simply couldn't put a show on? Ostensibly, we're told, the American people are being told that it's being closed for renovations. And, you know, objectively, I can tell you, there are.

are things that do need to be repaired, replaced, renovated within the Kennedy Center. However, all of those things are back of the house. They're underneath the theaters, which is where the production crews, that's their space to come and do the work that they do. Or it's things like the leaking roof. It's not really anything that is public facing. We believe, many of us from the inside, especially myself,

that the closure is a lot of the closure actually due to declining finances, if not near bankruptcy of the Kennedy Center. You know, Rick, in all of his public comments that weren't bashing previous leadership, he would give this figure of $130 million again and again and again and again and saying, you know, we've raised $130 million under me. And I think that's dubious. You know, colleagues of mine on the development team have told me that, you know, that money just isn't there. $130 million just doesn't exist. And so we'd been hearing whispers.

We, the staff, had been hearing whispers that reached me as late as early, rather, as August of last year that the CFO was actually proposing that the Kennedy Center closed under the guise of renovations as a way to cover the lack of finances. And that the reason why we had been hearing this in August is that she wanted to close it at the end of September because October 1st would. have been the start of the next fiscal year. Moving ahead to my layoff, along with others on March 26th, I believe we were laid off then because the following week was April 1st, the start of the next fiscal quarter. And they did not want to carry over the overhead costs of staff. And so I

firmly believe that they have bankrupted the Kennedy Center and they includes Donald Trump as chairman of the board. You know, going back to referencing David Rubinstein. And when he was the chairman of the board, he used to actually write checks at the end of the year. They would go to him and say, this is what we're missing, and he would write a check, cover it. You know, the chairman of any nonprofit board has fiduciary duties. And, you know, so I believe that Donald Trump was made aware that the Kennedy Center does not have the finances. And based on that, he decided to take the CFO's proposal to close the center for the cover of renovations. Well, we wouldn't want Donald Trump to have to cut a check like David Rubinstein.

That wouldn't, you know, that wouldn't be good for anyone. Joseph, thank you for being on today. And you can, you should read his piece at the Atlantic, you know, we'll link to it. And you should check it out. But it's, it's really interesting. It's damning. If you care at all about the state of the arts in Washington, D.C., it's, it's an important piece to read.

I was there a couple months back to kind of do some on the ground reporting of the last days just from a audience's perspective. And it was, it was pretty, it was pretty upsetting. People, people there were, you know, just kind of baffled by what was going on. So it's, it's bad all around. But I'm sure it'll be back and better than ever in, in two years, you know, renovated and ready to go. Well, I certainly hope so. And I certainly hope that, you know, and a big reason why I'm coming forward is because I really want to, to call upon the American people and the Congress to really create some sort of firewall so that we can never again have this kind of. political takeover from either side, left or right, of the Kennedy Center. I firmly believe that our

public arts institutions need to remain nonpartisan. And I hope that when the Kennedy Center reopens, that we will have achieved this. Fingers crossed, who are you working with? You mentioned a senator at the end of your piece. Who are you working with to get that done? Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is the ranking member of the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works, which has jurisdictional oversight over the Kennedy Center. And there has been an ongoing investigation for several months that his team had been engaged in. And on April 1st was when I had my first meeting with them to come forward as a whistleblower. I gave them all the information that I have. Joseph, thanks again for being on. Thank you for caring about this.

And again, make sure you like, subscribe. Share this with lovers of the arts. If you know somebody who is, you know, outraged by what they see going on, if you find it ridiculous that Donald Trump is out there parading around at the Kennedy Center Honors, you know, leave. leading the show. Send this to a friend. I'm sure they'll appreciate it. I know I will appreciate it and Joseph will. And so everybody who loves the Kennedy Center. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. Click click like and subscribe. We'll see you guys next time.