Trump to Kennedy Center board ahead of vote on 2-year shutdown: ‘You have to close it’

Ahead of a key vote, President Trump is urging his handpicked board of trustees for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to move ahead with his controversial plan to temporarily shutter the institution for renovations, saying, “You have to close it.” 

“I think everybody agrees, but subject to board approval, we determined that the fastest way to bring the Trump-Kennedy Center to the highest level of beauty and grandeur is to cease the entertainment operations for a two-year period of time as we complete really high quality construction,” Trump said on Monday as he kicked off a Kennedy Center board meeting in the White House’s East Room.

“The best way to do it is close it — do it properly, and reopen and have a grand reopening,” Trump said.

“And when it’s finished, it’s going to be far better than it was when it was originally built,” the president said as some of the Kennedy Center board’s members, including Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Attorney General Pam Bondi, looked on. 

“Over the past year, we’ve made incredible strides to restore the true purpose and prestige of this revered institution,” Trump said, calling the facility, which opened in 1971, “somewhat a disaster” before his........

© The Hill