After purging previous members and reshaping the Kennedy Center Board, taking over as board chairman and putting his name on the building last year, President Donald Trump has made another major announcement for the world-renowned arts venue: temporarily closing it for two years on July 4.
While the president said the decision to close is due to “construction, revitalization and complete rebuilding,” the announcement comes after several artists and organizations canceled performances and residencies after Trump’s 2025 takeover of the center, causing ticket sales to significantly plummet.
“[Trump’s] closing the Kennedy Center he says is to make it better,” social media user Dr. Cynthia Alease Smith, an anti-racism educator and essayist, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “He’s closing it down because he destroyed it and doesn’t want the embarrassment anymore.”
In late October, The Washington Post revealed that unsold tickets from Sept. 3 to Oct. 19 were at 43%, in comparison to 7% at the same time the previous year.
That was nine months into Trump’s presidency.
Then, in December, Trump renamed the venue — which officially opened in 1971 as a memorial to late President John F. Kennedy — by adding his name.
Despite reporting low viewership in 2024 — with more than 4 million people tuning in — fewer people watched the Kennedy Center Honors on Dec. 23, with Nielsen reporting a 25% decrease from last year to about 3.01 million in 2025.
For many, the president’s recent move to close the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts has more to do with low ticket sales and continued pushback from artists and audiences alike.
“A few weeks ago, Trump said he ‘saved the Kennedy Center,’ and now it’s closing down for two years,” disability activist Ola Ojewumi wrote on X. “He’s embarrassed that no one wants to perform at a venue named after him. He closed it down since the low sales and performance cancellations remind him how hated he is.”
The president said he plans to close the venue on July 4, in honor of the nation’s 250th anniversary, and begin construction of a “new and spectacular entertainment complex,” noting that financing is “fully in place.”
“This important decision, based on input from many highly respected experts, will take a tired, broken, and dilapidated center, one that has been in bad condition, both financially and structurally for many years, and turn it into a world-class bastion of arts, music, and entertainment, far better than it has ever been before,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social. “America will be very proud of its new and beautiful landmark for many generations to come.”
However, people such as Jack Schlossberg, the late president’s grandson, are speaking out.
“He can change the name, shut the doors, and demolish the building. He can try to kill JFK,” Schlossberg, a Democratic candidate for New York’s 12th Congressional District, wrote on X. “But JFK is kept alive by us now rising up to remove Donald Trump, bring him to justice, and restore the freedoms generations fought for.”