特朗普将肯尼迪中心作为人质的理由根本站不住脚

Trump’s reason for holding the Kennedy Center hostage doesn’t even make sense

2026-09-18T16:09:46.122Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/18/politics/trump-kennedy-center-claims

There is plenty that’s bizarre about President Donald Trump’s attempt to take the Kennedy Center hostage over a judge’s refusal to let him put his name on it. He’s now indicated twice in recent days that he will abandon the center — and even let it be “ripped down” — if the courts don’t change the ruling.

But high on the bizarreness quotient are Trump’s claims that the Kennedy Center needs him. They just don’t make sense.

The administration has made that argument repeatedly, including this summer in court.

“Without the name, ‘Trump’ on the Building, our fundraising will not only come to a halt, but any and all monies raised or committed would be obligated to be returned, refunded, or terminated,” the administration said in a June filing.

It added in another filing last month that not recognizing Trump would mean the Kennedy Center would continue to be in a financial and structural death spiral.

Then Trump indicated he wouldn’t provide the center help if his name wasn’t used.

“For me to get involved and to take that on long-term and to carry it or to raise money to carry it — I think that the Trump administration should certainly have recognition,” he told reporters in Charlotte on Wednesday night. “Because frankly, if we don’t do that, it’s going to close. It’ll end up being ripped down.”

He also claimed this week that “17 Million Dollars, raised by President Trump, has been put into The Kennedy Center account to keep it afloat.”

But Congress last year appropriated $257 million for renovating the building. Trump apparently wants credit for getting Congress to do that — and is trying to hold that funding up to get what he wants. But it’s Congress that put up the money.

It’s also pretty evident that, to the extent the center is in financial trouble, it coincides with Trump’s efforts to take it over.

As recently as September 2024, tax documents showed the Kennedy Center running more than a $41 million surplus — with $307 million in revenue and $266 million in expenses.

Five months later, after Trump was inaugurated for the second time, he replaced the board with loyalists who quickly made him chairman.

And that’s when the center’s financial problems appear to have kicked in. Artists who were supposed to perform canceled. And a Washington Post investigation last month found ticket revenue and fundraising revenue fell sharply. That was especially the case after the board voted in December to put Trump’s name on the building, which the judge later forced to be removed. (A Kennedy Center spokesperson told the Post that the problems stemmed from previous leadership and that Trump’s name actually attracted new donors, resulting in a balanced fiscal 2027 proposed budget.)

But the Post reported that, as of June, the center’s financial projections had it “on track to fall nearly $100 million short of its revenue target.”

That was a very different outlook than the center had as recently as 2024.

It was also very different from what Trump had been saying to that point. In fact, just a few months before the administration sought to use the center’s dire financial straits as a legal reason it needed Trump’s name, the president claimed credit for a huge financial turnaround at the center.

“We have tremendous amounts of money coming in from some people around the table, but also from people that are not here,” Trump said at a lunch with the Kennedy Center board in March.

He added in December: “The building was in such bad shape, both physically and financially in every other way. And now it’s very solid, very strong.”

So Trump appears to have claimed things were great when he wanted credit, and now he’s claiming things are dismal when he needs a reason to put his name on the building.

But the legal argument has fallen completely flat with US District Judge Christopher R. Cooper.

Cooper and the DC Circuit Court of Appeals previously said that the administration offered no evidence to back up the assertion that Trump’s name was needed.

Cooper added in his ruling this week said that this question was “beside the point for present purposes.” But he also took time to knock it down.

“In fact, evidence before the Court pointed in the opposite direction: The renaming of the Center coincided with declines in revenue and contributions, as artists cancelled performances, the Washington National Opera ended its 50-year residency, and ticket sales and viewership of the Kennedy Center Honors broadcast dropped precipitously,” the judge wrote.

He added: “The Board also has access to the $257 million that Congress appropriated for necessary capital improvements — an outlay that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick indicated at the August 13 meeting President Trump is prepared to use ‘to complete the renovation work.’”

In other words, Trump isn’t just holding the Kennedy Center hostage for his own glorification; he’s doing so with a bunch of logically and legally incoherent claims.