kennedy center

WASHINGTON — Most American presidents aspire to the kind of greatness that prompts future generations to name important things in their honor.

Donald Trump isn’t leaving it to future generations.

As the first year of his second term wraps up, his Republican administration and allies have put his name on the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Kennedy Center performing arts venue and a new class of battleships that’s yet to be built.

That’s on top of the “Trump Accounts” for tax-deferred investments, the TrumpRx government website soon to offer direct sales of prescription drugs, the “Trump Gold Card” visa that costs at least $1 million and the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, a transit corridor included in a deal his administration brokered between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

On Friday, he plans to attend a ceremony in Florida where local officials will dedicate a 4-mile stretch of road from the airport to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach as President Donald J. Trump Boulevard.

Another example of the unorthodoxy of Trump’s career

It’s unprecedented for a sitting president to embrace tributes of that number and scale, especially those proffered by members of his administration. And while past sitting presidents have typically been honored by local officials naming schools and roads after them, it’s exceedingly rare for airports, federal buildings, warships or other government assets to be named for someone still in power.

“At no previous time in history have we consistently named things after a president who was still in office,” said Jeffrey Engel, the David Gergen Director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. “One might even extend that to say a president who is still alive. Those kind of memorializations are supposed to be just that — memorials to the passing hero.”

White House spokeswoman Liz Huston said the TrumpRx website linked to the president’s deals to lower the price of some prescription drugs, along with “overdue upgrades of national landmarks, lasting peace deals, and wealth-creation accounts for children are historic initiatives that would not have been possible without President Trump’s bold leadership.”

“The Administration’s focus isn’t on smart branding, but delivering on President Trump’s goal of Making America Great Again,” Huston said.

The White House pointed out that the nation’s capital was named after President George Washington and the Hoover Dam was named after President Herbert Hoover while each was serving as president.

For Trump, it’s a continuation of the way he first etched his place onto the American consciousness, becoming famous as a real estate developer who affixed his name in big gold letters on luxury buildings and hotels, a casino and assorted products like neckties, wine and steaks.

Trump’s for-profit branding has continued

As he ran for president in 2024, the candidate rolled out Trump-branded business ventures for watches, fragrances, Bibles and sneakers — including golden high tops priced at $799. After taking office again last year, Trump’s businesses launched a Trump Mobile phone company, with plans to unveil a gold-colored smartphone and a cryptocurrency memecoin named $TRUMP.

That’s not to be confused with plans for a physical, government-issued Trump coin that U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach said the U.S. Mint is planning.

Trump has also reportedly told the owners of Washington’s NFL team that he would like his name on the Commanders’ new stadium. The team’s ownership group, which has the naming rights, has not commented on the idea. But a White House spokeswoman in November called the proposed name “beautiful” and said Trump made the rebuilding of the stadium possible.

The addition of Trump’s name to the Kennedy Center in December so outraged independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont that he introduced legislation this week to ban the naming or renaming of any federal building or land after a sitting president — a ban that would retroactively apply to the Kennedy Center and Institute of Peace.

“I think he is a narcissist who likes to see his name up there. If he owns a hotel, that’s his business,” Sanders said in an interview. “But he doesn’t own federal buildings.”

Sanders likened Trump’s penchant for putting his name on government buildings and more to the actions of authoritarian leaders throughout history.

“If the American people want to name buildings after a president who is deceased, that’s fine. That’s what we do,” Sanders said. “But to use federal buildings to enhance your own position very much sounds like the ‘Great Leader’ mentality of North Korea, and that is not something that I think the American people want.”

Although some of the naming has been suggested by others, the president has made clear he’s pleased with the tributes.

Three months after the announcement of the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, a name the White House says was proposed by Armenian officials, the president gushed about it at a White House dinner.

“It’s such a beautiful thing, they named it after me. I really appreciate it. It’s actually a big deal,” he told a group of Central Asian leaders.

Engel, the presidential historian, said the practice can send a signal to people “that the easiest way to get access and favor from the president is to play to his ego and give him something or name something after him.”

Supporters say the tributes are well-deserved

Some of the proposals for honoring Trump include legislation in Congress from New York Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney that would designate June 14 as “Trump’s Birthday and Flag Day,” placing the president with the likes of Martin Luther King Jr., George Washington and Jesus Christ, whose birthdays are recognized as national holidays.

Florida Republican Rep. Greg Steube has introduced legislation that calls for the Washington-area rapid transit system, known as the Metro, to be renamed the “Trump Train.” North Carolina Republican Rep. Addison McDowell has introduced legislation to rename Washington Dulles International Airport as Donald J. Trump International Airport.

McDowell said it makes sense to give Dulles a new name since Trump has already announced plans to revamp the airport, which currently is a tribute to former Secretary of State John Foster Dulles.

The congressman said he wanted to honor Trump because he feels the president has been a champion for combating the scourge of fentanyl, a personal issue for McDowell after his brother’s overdose death. But he also cited Trump’s efforts to strike peace deals all over the world and called him “one of the most consequential presidents ever.”

“I think that’s somebody that deserves to be honored, whether they’re still the president or whether they’re not,” he said.

More efforts are underway in Florida, Trump’s adopted home.

Republican state lawmaker Meg Weinberger said she is working on an effort to rename Palm Beach International Airport as Donald J. Trump International Airport, a potential point of confusion with the Dulles effort.

The road that the president will see christened Friday is not the first Florida asphalt to herald Trump upon his return to the White House.

In the south Florida city of Hialeah, officials in December 2024 renamed a street there as President Donald J. Trump Avenue.

Trump, speaking at a Miami business conference the next month, called it a “great honor” and said he loved the mayor for it.

“Anybody that names a boulevard after me, I like,” he said.

He added a few moments later: “A lot of people come back from Hialeah, they say, ‘They just named a road after you.’ I say, ‘That’s OK.’ It’s a beginning, right? It’s a start.”

Price and Weissert write for the Associated Press.

In what might be the most decisive critique yet of President Trump’s remake of the Kennedy Center, the Washington National Opera’s board approved a resolution on Friday to leave the venue it has occupied since 1971.

“Today, the Washington National Opera announced its decision to seek an amicable early termination of its affiliation agreement with the Kennedy Center and resume operations as a fully independent nonprofit entity,” the company said in a statement to the Associated Press.

Roma Daravi, Kennedy Center’s vice president of public relations, described the relationship with Washington National Opera as “financially challenging.”

“After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to part ways with the WNO due to a financially challenging relationship,” Daravi said in a statement. “We believe this represents the best path forward for both organizations and enables us to make responsible choices that support the financial stability and long-term future of the Trump Kennedy Center.”

Kennedy Center President Ambassador Richard Grenell tweeted that the call was made by the Kennedy Center, writing that its leadership had “approached the Opera leadership last year with this idea and they began to be open to it.”

“Having an exclusive relationship has been extremely expensive and limiting in choice and variety,” Grenell wrote. “We have spent millions of dollars to support the Washington Opera’s exclusivity and yet they were still millions of dollars in the hole – and getting worse.”

WNO’s decision to vacate the Kennedy Center’s 2,364-seat Opera House comes amid a wave of artist cancellations that came after the venue’s board voted to rename the center the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. New signage featuring Trump’s name went up on the building’s exterior just days after the vote while debate raged over whether an official name change could be made without congressional approval.

That same day, Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) — an ex officio member of the board — wrote on social media that the vote was not unanimous and that she and others who might have voiced their dissent were muted on the call.

Grenell countered that ex officio members don’t get a vote.

Cancellations soon began to mount — as did Kennedy Center‘s rebukes against the artists who chose not to appear. Jazz drummer Chuck Redd pulled out of his annual Christmas Eve concert; jazz supergroup the Cookers nixed New Year’s Eve shows; New York-based Doug Varone and Dancers dropped out of April performances; and Grammy Award-winning banjo player Béla Fleck wrote on social media that he would no longer play at the venue in February.

WNO’s departure, however, represents a new level of artist defection. The company’s name is synonymous with the Kennedy Center and it has served as an artistic center of gravity for the complex since the building first opened.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has ended the lease agreement for three public golf courses in Washington, a move that offers President Trump an additional opportunity to put his stamp on another piece of the nation’s capital.

The National Links Trust, the nonprofit that has operated Washington’s three public courses on federal land for the last five years, said Wednesday that the Department of the Interior had terminated its 50-year lease agreement. The Interior Department said it was terminating the lease because the nonprofit had not implemented required capital improvements and failed to meet the terms of the lease.

While it was unclear what the Trump administration’s plans are for the golf courses, the move gives Trump, whose private company has developed numerous golf courses in the U.S. and abroad, the chance to remake links overlooking the Potomac River and in Rock Creek Park and a site that is part of Black golf history.

Officials for the National Links Trust said in a statement that they were “devastated” by the decision to terminate the lease and defended their management of the courses. They said $8.5 million had gone toward capital improvements at the courses and that rounds played and revenue had more than doubled in their tenure managing the courses. The nonprofit has agreed to keep managing the courses for the time being, but long-term renovations will stop.

“While this termination is a major setback, we remain stubbornly hopeful that a path forward can be found that preserves affordable and accessible public golf in the nation’s capital for generations to come,” the officials added.

The Department of the Interior’s decision comes as Trump rebrands civic spaces in Washington and deploys National Guard members to the streets for public safety. The Kennedy Center added Trump’s name this month after the center’s board of trustees — made up of Trump appointees — voted to change the name of the performing arts space designated by Congress as a memorial to John F. Kennedy. Trump is also in the midst of a construction project to build a ballroom on the White House’s East Wing, and he has put his name on the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Groves writes for the Associated Press.

The Kennedy Center is ending the year with a new round of artists saying they are canceling scheduled performances after President Donald Trump’s name was added to the facility, prompting the institution’s president to accuse the performers of making their decisions because of politics.

The Cookers, a jazz supergroup that has performed together for nearly two decades, announced their withdrawal from “A Jazz New Year’s Eve” on their website, saying the “decision has come together very quickly” and acknowledging frustration from those who may have planned to attend.

Doug Varone and Dancers, a dance group based in New York, said in an Instagram post late Monday they would pull out of a performance slated for April, saying they “can no longer permit ourselves nor ask our audiences to step inside this once great institution.”

Those moves come after musician Chuck Redd canceled a Christmas Eve performance last week. They also come amid declining sales for tickets to the venue, as well as news that viewership for the Dec. 23 broadcast of the Kennedy Center Honors — which Trump had predicted would soar — was down by about 35% compared to the 2024 show.

The announcements amount to a volatile calendar for one of the most prominent performing arts venues in the U.S. and cap a year of tension in which Trump ousted the Kennedy Center board and named himself the institution’s chairman. That led to an earlier round of artist pushback, with performer Issa Rae and the producers of “Hamilton” canceling scheduled engagements while musicians Ben Folds and Renee Fleming stepped down from advisory roles.

The Cookers didn’t mention the building’s renaming or the Trump administration but did say that, when they return to performing, they wanted to ensure that “the room is able to celebrate the full presence of the music and everyone in it,” reiterating a commitment “to playing music that reaches across divisions rather than deepening them.”

The group may not have addressed the Kennedy Center situation directly, but one of its members has. On Saturday, saxophone player Billy Harper said in comments posted on the Jazz Stage Facebook page that he “would never even consider performing in a venue bearing a name (and being controlled by the kind of board) that represents overt racism and deliberate destruction of African American music and culture. The same music I devoted my life to creating and advancing.”

According to the White House, Trump’s handpicked board approved the renaming. Harper said both the board “as well as the name displayed on the building itself represents a mentality and practices I always stood against. And still do, today more than ever.”

Richard Grenell, a Trump ally whom the president chose to head the Kennedy Center after he forced out the previous leadership, posted Monday night on X, “The artists who are now canceling shows were booked by the previous far left leadership,” intimating the bookings were made under the Biden administration.

In a statement Tuesday to The Associated Press, Grenell said the ”last minute cancellations prove that they were always unwilling to perform for everyone — even those they disagree with politically,” adding that the Kennedy Center had been “flooded with inquiries from real artists willing to perform for everyone and who reject political statements in their artistry.”

There was no immediate word from Kennedy Center officials about whether the entity would pursue legal action against the latest round of artists to cancel performances. Following Redd’s cancellation last week, Grenell said he would seek $1 million in damages for what he called a “political stunt.”

Not all artists are calling off their shows. Bluegrass banjoist Randy Barrett, scheduled to perform at the Kennedy Center next month, told the AP he was “deeply troubled by the politicization” of the venue and respected those who had canceled but feels that “our tribalized country needs more music and art, not less. It’s one of the few things that can bring us together.”

President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, and Congress passed a law the following year naming the center as a living memorial to him. Scholars have said any changes to the building’s name would need congressional approval; the law explicitly prohibits the board of trustees from making the center into a memorial to anyone else, and from putting another person’s name on the building’s exterior.

More artists have canceled scheduled performances at the Kennedy Center following the addition of President Donald Trump’s name to the facility, with jazz supergroup The Cookers pulling out of a planned New Year’s Eve concert, and the institution’s president saying the cancellations belie the artists’ unwillingness to see their music as crossing lines of political disparity.

The fresh round of cancellations after Trump put his name of the building follows an earlier artist backlash in spring. After Trump ousted the Kennedy Center board and named himself the institution’s chairman in February, performer Issa Rae and the producers of “Hamilton” cancelled scheduled engagements while musicians Ben Folds and Renee Flaming stepped down from advisory roles.

The Cookers, a jazz supergroup performing together for nearly two decades, announced their withdrawal from “A Jazz New Year’s Eve” on their website, saying the “decision has come together very quickly” and acknowledging frustration from those who may have planned to attend.

The group didn’t mention the building’s renaming or the Trump administration but did say that, when they return to performing, they wanted to ensure that “the room is able to celebrate the full presence of the music and everyone in it,” reiterating a commitment “to playing music that reaches across divisions rather than deepening them.”

The group may not have addressed the Kennedy Center situation directly, but one of its members has. On Saturday, saxophone player Billy Harper said in comments posted on the Jazz Stage Facebook page that he “would never even consider performing in a venue bearing a name (and being controlled by the kind of board) that represents overt racism and deliberate destruction of African American music and culture. The same music I devoted my life to creating and advancing.”

According to the White House, Trump’s handpicked board approved the renaming. Harper said both the board, “as well as the name displayed on the building itself represents a mentality and practices I always stood against. And still do, today more than ever.”

Richard Grenell, a Trump ally whom the president chose to head the Kennedy Center after he forced out the previous leadership, posted Monday night on X that “The artists who are now canceling shows were booked by the previous far left leadership,” intimating the bookings were made under the Biden administration.

In a statement to the Associated Press, Grenell said Tuesday the ”last minute cancellations prove that they were always unwilling to perform for everyone — even those they disagree with politically,” adding that the Kennedy Center had been “flooded with inquiries from real artists willing to perform for everyone and who reject political statements in their artistry.”

There was no immediate word from Kennedy Center officials if the entity would pursue legal action against the group, as Grenell said it would after musician Chuck Redd canceled a Christmas Eve performance. Following that withdrawal, in which Redd cited the Kennedy Center renaming, Grenell said he would seek $1 million in damages for what he called a “political stunt.”

President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, and Congress passed a law the following year naming the center as a living memorial to him. Scholars have said any changes to the building’s name would need congressional approval; the law explicitly prohibits the board of trustees from making the center into a memorial to anyone else, and from putting another person’s name on the building’s exterior.

Kinnard writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Steven Sloan and Hillel Italie contributed to this report.

NEW YORK — A planned Christmas Eve jazz concert at the Kennedy Center, a holiday tradition dating back more than 20 years, has been canceled. The show’s host, musician Chuck Redd, says that he called off the performance in the wake of the White House announcing last week that President Trump’s name would be added to the facility.

As of Friday, the building’s facade reads The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. According to the White House, the president’s handpicked board approved the decision, which scholars have said violates the law. Trump had been suggesting for months he was open to changing the center’s name.

“When I saw the name change on the Kennedy Center website and then hours later on the building, I chose to cancel our concert,” Redd told the Associated Press in an email Wednesday. Redd, a drummer and vibraphone player who has toured with everyone from Dizzy Gillespie to Ray Brown, has been presiding over holiday “Jazz Jams” at the Kennedy Center since 2006, succeeding bassist William “Keter” Betts.

The Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to email seeking comment. The center’s website lists the show as canceled.

President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, and Congress passed a law the following year naming the center as a living memorial to him. Kennedy niece Kerry Kennedy has vowed to remove Trump’s name from the building once he leaves office and former House historian Ray Smock is among those who say any changes would have to be approved by Congress.

The law explicitly prohibits the board of trustees from making the center into a memorial to anyone else, and from putting another person’s name on the building’s exterior.

Trump, a Republican, has been deeply involved with the center named for an iconic Democrat after mostly ignoring it during his first term. He has forced out its leadership, overhauled the board while arranging for himself to head it and hosted this year’s Kennedy Center honors, breaking a long tradition of presidents mostly serving as spectators. The changes at the Kennedy Center are part of the president’s larger mission to fight “woke” culture at federal cultural institutions.

Numerous artists have called off Kennedy Center performances since Trump returned to office, including Issa Rae and Peter Wolf. Lin-Manuel Miranda canceled a planned production of “Hamilton.”

Italie writes for the Associated Press.