Bulwark Takes - Is Trump Going to Demolish the Kennedy Center?

Episode Date: February 3, 2026

JVL and Sonny Bunch give their takes on Trump’s sudden decision to shut down the Kennedy Center for two years after politicizing it, slapping his name on it, and driving ticket sales to historic lows. They break down how an iconic, nonpartisan arts institution ended up with pandemic-level attendance, why artists and audiences fled, and how a pathetic vanity project backfired spectacularly.Get 30% off your entire order with Soul at https://GetSoul.com, promo code BULWARKTAKES.

Hey, everybody. Great news. Donald Trump is doing another East Wing. Going to do a very, very powerful and strong, some would say beautiful East Wing on the Trump Kennedy Center. I'm JVL here with my bulwark colleague, Sunny Bunch. And Sunny, yesterday, we got a truth announcement from the president of the East of the United States saying, after a one-year review of the Trump Kennedy Center that has taken place with contractors, musical experts, art institutions, and other advisors and consultants, deciding between either construction with closure and reopening or partial construction while continuing entertainment operations

through a much longer period of time, working in and around performances, I have determined that the Trump Kennedy Center, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, he's closing it. He's closing it for two years, and he is going to then reopen it, and it's going to be the Trump Kennedy Center will be returned to the highest level of success, beauty, and grandeur,

and with a scheduled grand reopening that will rival and surpass anything that has taken place with respect to such a facility before. I have so many questions, Sonny. Do you want to offer preliminary thoughts? I don't know that I will have answers for you, Jonathan, the last book. But I will try.

I will try. Had it been suggested anywhere else prior to this truth tweet that there was going to be a gigantic renovation? No. That there were plans undergoing and consultations and specta? Were there bids put out for this? Were their hearings held? Are there, is there a draft somewhere with computer renderings of what it was to look like? No?

Bueller. I don't. I don't think so. That doesn't sound like something that happened. No, I look, here's, I don't think anybody expected this. This was not the expected outcome. There was, there's been a lot of chatter about what's going on at the Kennedy Center, you know, because just FYI, things are bad at the Kennedy Center. The ticket sales are very bad.

They're very down. They're not good right now. People are not going to the Kennedy Center, the Washington Post. Is it because of woke? Is that why the tickets are? down it's not it's not not because of woke we can say it's uh you know because of the the real issue here is things are different at the kennedy center this time around than they were in the first trump term and let me i i'll say so if you go back to the first trump term um for the first trump uh cycle in office

the kennedy center operated more or less like normal it operated more or less like normal he he put people on the board and whatever it it cycled through you know kind of the normal procedures of how the Kennedy Center runs, but it didn't, there weren't huge changes. There weren't huge changes. There was even a renovation project. There was actually a renovation project. It did not, it did not entail shutting the place down for two years and stopping everything and redoing it. But like, for instance, Hamilton played at the Kennedy Center. You made, did you go see Hamilton at the Kennedy Center? I know you're a New Yorker. You probably saw it with the original cast in New York City. I don't do off-Broadway productions. You don't do off-Broadway. You only do original. I don't do

the I don't do touring productions. I'm sorry. I should say I do off-Broadway. I will do off-Broadway up here in the New York City area. Oh, sure. But I don't do touring productions. Right. An actual off-Broadway in. I don't mean to sound like a snob. We're going to lead us, Sonny. You don't? I don't mean to. You sure about that? No, no. But, but again, set aside the fact that it's, you know, it's not the original touring production with Anthony Ramos and that whole crew. He was, he did, he did. I love it that you pulled his name from it. did I get that right? You did?

I mean, it's an interesting poll. Of all the people in that original Broadway cast, you pulled Anthony Ramos. He's the only one who's been in a Transformers movie. So anyway, the, the, Boom! This is great, we're off to a great start here. But my point is, my point is simple.

Back in 2017 or 2018, when Trump was in office, they had a performance of Hamilton there. Yes. And the producer of Hamilton, this time around, not to perform there. And part of this is because they put a bunch of new people on the board who have been very

antagonistic to a lot of the artists, a lot of the initiatives there. Richard Grinnell, not a fan of a lot of the DEI initiatives under predecessors. He's not into the woke because of woke. But on top of all this, and this is the real, this is the real actual big change. Somebody got the brilliant idea. And I don't know if it was Donald Trump. Donald Trump just mentioned one day, you know, it'd be great if we called it the Trump Kennedy Center, we could really get my fans out there. And then Mr. Grinnell was like, yes, that's a great idea.

Let's do it immediately. And they did it. But it has really shifted the public perception of the Kennedy Center. The decision to kind of drag it kicking and screaming into the culture wars has been disastrous for it. I mean, there's really only, that's the only way to describe what has happened here because it's not, it's not just that ticket sales are way down. Like I said, the Washington Post has done a really, a really long kind of thorough breakdown of what has, what has been going on this year at the Kennedy Center. It's bad. It's bad. So here is the post analysis from September to mid-October last year. On average, only 7% of seats were available for a typical production on the day.

of performance. In 2023, 20% of seats were unsold. In 2022, a robust year for the center, only 6% of seats were available. So then you go back to 2021, which was coming off COVID. There was a lot of hesitancy to go back to theaters. Everything was still kind of closed. DC was still kind of a mess in 2021. As the center was reopening during the coronavirus pandemic, 34% of seats went unsold. A bit less than this year when the median production had about 43% of seats unsold. So that's a lot of seats. You're saying worse than pandemic. It's worse than COVID right now. And I wanted to test this. I wanted to test this. So I went to the Kennedy Center website and I looked up an upcoming performance of the National Symphony Orchestra working with Radiohead to this National Symphony Orchestra does radio head. And there were like, I would say 80% of the seats were available at least maybe. maybe more than that. It was, it was, it was, it was, it was, and again, this is a random Tuesday, you know, that's never going to be the biggest selling day of the year. But I, I will, I will say it's,

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takes. That's get sole.com promo code bulwark takes for 30% up. But good news. I got good news for you, Javio. Yeah. I got good news for you. Okay. Because you're talking about the demand problem. And I'm also wondering if there's a supply problem. But we'll get to that.

We'll get to that in one second. We'll get to that one second. But I'll tell you what, there's not a lack of supply of. It's classic stand-up comedian. Adam Carolla was just in town. Oh, fantastic. I love him. Does he still do the Dr. True thing?

Is that done? I think that's done. Crank Yanker's done. He's got a podcast. He's got a popular podcast. I'm not going to just, I'm not going to, I'm not going to, I'm not going to downplay Adam Carolla's success as a podcaster because podcasting is our most important art form. As you know, JBL.

True. It's the only way people get news these days. So that's great for us. That's great for, maybe bad for America, but it's great for us. He's still there. He did Tony Hinchcliff. You want to see Tony Hinchcliff? Oh, who doesn't.

Do you remember Tony Hinchcliff? I remember him from saying garbage things about. Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico, garbage people in state and whatever. That's Tony Hinchcliff, that guy from, you'll remember Tony Hinchcliff from his roast at the RNC. Remember that? Yeah. Anyway, so you can go see him.

I myself, JVL, you're, you should join me for this. You should come down from New York City. Get out of your, get out of your ivory tower and come watch Jeff Foxworthy with me. He's going to be playing. He's alive? On Friday, I'm going to be there. I'm coming. Jeff Foxworthy live.

He's still alive. Is he going to do you? might be a redneck. You're going to find out if you're a redneck or not. That's great stuff, man. That's gold, Jerry. Round team, get it? Round team. I like, hey, hey, you know, don't, don't down, don't, this is he's a man of the people. And that's what, that's what, that's what, you know, the granals of the board now wanted to get. They wanted to get the people, they wanted to get the people. Right. The proletariat. Those shows are selling okay. They're not sellouts. I was able to get tickets without any,

I could have gone to all these shows if I'd wanted to. But I, but I, but I'm chosen. I'm choosing to go to see Jeff Foxworthy, who I am a big fan of and have been for some time. Really excited for this. I'm glad I can fly in for it. But the point here is, you're right. There is a real supply problem. Again, it's not just Hamilton, the production of Hamilton, which has decided to leave. Philip Glass was commissioned to create a symphony celebrating Abraham Lincoln. He was a little late, a couple years late on it. Unbreakable movies?

No, that's Mr. Glass. That's Mr. Glass. Sorry. That joke didn't land, but I was very pleased with it. I'm trying to play into your joke. I'm trying to, you know, I'm trying to, I'm trying to hit you there. Trying to, trying to, anyway. Good joke, J.B.L.

Anyway, the... I should play the Kennedy Center. You could play the Kennedy Center. They need you. They need you right now. Anyway, the point here is that Philip Glass, he's not going to be there. the Washington Opera, they have said, we're going to go find someplace else to play.

We can't play here anymore. The ticket sales are too bad. We can't afford to put on shows here. It's bad all the way around. It's bad all the way around, again, because they have transformed the Kennedy Center from a non-partisan arts-forward institution into an arm.

They've tried to turn it into an arm of MAGA thought. And it is not worked because, this is not what artists want. It's not worked because this is not what the people who like MAGA want. They're not, they're not interested. They don't care about the Kennedy Center. They don't, they're not interested in that. They don't, they don't care about that.

And you see it in the even, even in something like the Kennedy Center honors. Again, look at Philip Glass specifically. Philip Glass received a Kennedy Center honor during Trump's first turn, term. I believe it was 2018, maybe in 2019 or 2017, but it's, it's right in the heart of Trumpism. Philip Glass receives his Kennedy Center honor. Everything's fine. It's not a big deal because nobody had slapped his dumb name on the front of the building.

By the way, which they have no legal authority to do. There's no legal authority to rename the Trump Kennedy Center. The members of Congress who... It's like Department of War. I saw somebody in American Bridge be like, don't focus on this, Democrats. You need to focus on price of milk or whatever. And like, whatever, I agreed, that's fine. but I can focus on it and it's outrageous.

It's insane. It's just an insane overstepping of legal bounds that should not have happened. That should not have happened. And I, look, I will say that I am, I, this saddens me in one very specific way, which is that I am a big believer in the idea that, you know, the arts should not necessarily be a neutral space, but they should, it should be a space where every, plays and it should not devolve into like lame partisan warfare. And again, through the first Trump term, that was totally the case. That was it was just, it was just a place where people went to celebrate the arts. And that is not the case anymore.

And it is, I think it's a bummer. I think it's a bummer, man. It is classic authoritarian stuff, right? This is something Omar Gaddafi would have done. Right? I put my name on it. Gold. Put more, drape more gold on it.

and put my name. And I want my female bodyguards to perform, a circuitous filet there, or something like that. It is the idea that this thing is an appendage of the leader. And so it must not only be named for the leader, but it must be glorified in the ways that we glorify the leader. And it must have programming to reflect the leader's tastes.

Can't have deviation is programming there, right? No deviation is programming at the Kennedy Center. We're not having any of this, you know, woke. Here's my big question for you, though. Yeah. Is the Kennedy Center going to be renovated? Are they going to east wing it? Because I wouldn't bet a watch, but I bet like 50 bucks.

I bet a 50 that that thing is going down. I think you would have a hard time getting away with that. A harder time than the White House, where I think the president has as a much broader purview of like what sort of renovations can be done. And, you know, and I understand he didn't follow the process for the East Wing demolition at all. But I do think that that's slightly different than Kennedy, the Kennedy Center because he doesn't live there. And it's not like putting in a pool or whatever. There's a board of the Kennedy Center, which he appointed.

And so if the board says, we need to tear this thing down to studs, this is a tear down. It could happen. I don't think it'll happen. I don't think it'll happen. but it could happen. I don't like to think about this, frankly. Last question. I don't want to think of it.

I mean, glue, they need to be able to do MMA there, right? If UFC can't hold a fight at the Kennedy Center, then Donald Trump will have really gacked this one, right? I'll be honest. If we don't have an octagon in the place of the opera house, I will be very disappointed. If this, if this doesn't come back with a fully functional octagon type arena, I will be very disappointed with the Kennedy Center's management for really botching that one. I will say, look, I just want my one last thought on this is that you say it is a classically authoritarian thing. It's also just

like classically lame. This is a, this is like the lamest thing that the Trump people have done. Like, oh, we're going to put his name on it because that'll make him happy. Like, it's pathetic. It's pathetic in a way that I think kind of breaks through the ice of a lot of the other like, things that just kind of get glossed over. Like, this is the sort of thing we would laugh at a North Korean child of a dictator for doing to himself. You know, this is like the Kim arena or whatever. You know, I like. It does work.

Does it? I think it works. Final question. When it reopens, is it still the Trump Kennedy Center? The Trump Kennedy Center? Or do we lose the Kennedy? and just make it the Trump Center for the Performing Arts. Because my theory is that for Trump's purposes of Trump's ego,

it is better for it to be the Trump Kennedy Center because then he feels linked to American royalty. So I think it is self-affirming for him to keep Kennedy's name on it with him. I think that's actually very true. I think that is true, the idea that he is as great as Kennedy. He is as great as John F. Kennedy. I think that's about right. But I do think it will be Trump Kennedy Center until the moment a Democrat is president again,

and then it will go back to being the Kennedy Center. It will be easier to take the Trump off of the Trump Kennedy Center than it will be to tear down that ballroom, which I know is your day one priority. Well, I mean, all it requires is like the law. Because again, the Trump Kennedy Center was not changed into the Trump Kennedy Center by an act of law. It's just like giving it a nickname. It's not a thing. Department of War. It doesn't actually exist. Everybody else is just going along with it.

The Trump Kennedy Center is not a thing. It's still the Kennedy Center. Guys, it's going to get better from here. Sonny. Catch you later. Everybody else. Good luck, America.