The D.C. Brief

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP LAST year successfully wrestled control of one of the nation's dominant performing-arts stages with unheard-of efficiency. He ousted its leader, installed a loyalist at the helm, made himself the chairman of its reconstituted board, scrambled its programing calendar, alienated cultural leaders, exiled its resident opera company, declared himself the M.C. of its biggest fundraising gala, and treated it like an annex of the White House for events that cast him as the headliner.

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Just so no one doubted his total ownership, in December he put his name on the building formerly known as the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. Naturally, Trump took top billing.

Now, barely a year back in Washington, Trump abruptly announced on social media on Feb. 1 that he is shuttering the Kennedy Center entirely for two years—basically the rest of his term—so he can reopen it in the waning days of his last year in power with a ballyhooed blitz. In a city largely numb to Trump's capricious moves, this one had everyone doing a double take.

As one former Kennedy Center staffer messaged: “He really does think this whole place is The Boardroom of The Apprentice, doesn't he?”

Trump's latest move came with no warning to the Kennedy Center's staff or performers, let alone those who had been hoping to make an appearance there in the coming years. It's a loss that cuts at a pillar of Washington's performing-arts community, or would if the Kennedy Center's place in local and national culture hadn't taken such a dramatic nosedive over the past year, as audiences stayed away from a complex consumed by partisanship.

Trump claims the building is in disrepair and in need of years of improvements. Speaking with reporters on Feb. 2, the President hinted that he intended to take the building down to its shell.

It's not clear if this means he takes a dim view of the $250 million expansion the Kennedy Center unveiled in 2019 (yes, that was during Trump's first term). That would indicate the closure is not actually about building repairs but rather an attempt to save face over an empty dance card, as some in Washington privately suspect.