Trump’s Kennedy Center Shakedown

The saga of Donald Trump’s repeated attempts to slap his name onto the John F.

Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts will not go away.

In May, Trump lost in court and was ordered to remove his name from the building.

But now—according to a 57-page presentation by Trump’s hand-picked executive board obtained by The Washington Post —the Kennedy Center is warning that it will likely go bankrupt.

Unless, that is, Trump gets to put his name back on the wall next to that of his slain predecessor.

The Post reports: Trump’s support hinges on getting public credit for his involvement.

The financial resolution says Trump has offered to “raise the necessary funds to keep the Center from bankruptcy” while the building undergoes a sweeping renovation.

But it says Trump is unlikely to provide “fundamental oversight” of that project or lead a financial rescue without “appropriate recognition” of his role.

That’s not an offer of help; it’s a shakedown—or, in more direct terms, political blackmail.

Two lawyers who have been fighting the Trump administration, Norm Eisen and Nathaniel Zelinsky, said in a statement: “Trump is taking the Center hostage and threatening to in effect kill it unless he gets his way.” The president is counting on the board’s civic spirit and affection for the institution—neither of which he evidently possesses—to strong-arm it into giving him what the law and courts would not allow.

Even more galling than Trump’s attempt to pressure the trustees is that his offer is a response to a crisis mostly of his own creation.

It’s true that the Kennedy Center, opened more than a half century ago, needs investment and repairs.

But the plummeting ticket sales are a result of Trump’s hostile takeover.

Performers and patrons alike did not want to legitimize the obscenity of placing Trump’s name on an institution meant to honor Kennedy, and they voted with their feet and their dollars.