Trump’s Kennedy Center takeover plunges further into chaos

More artists have canceled their performances at the Kennedy Center after its Trump-acolyte-dominated board’s recent vote to add the president’s name to the performing arts center earlier this month. 

The latest includes The Cookers, a jazz ensemble, which called off their New Year’s Eve show on Monday. 

The band did not explicitly mention the name change, but in a statement wrote, “Jazz was born from struggle and from a relentless insistence on freedom: freedom of thought, of expression, and of the full human voice. Some of us have been making this music for many decades, and that history still shapes us.”

“We are not turning away from our audience, and do want to make sure that when we do return to the bandstand, the room is able to celebrate the full presence of the music and everyone in it,” they continued. “We remain committed to playing music that reaches across divisions rather than deepening them.”

The group’s drummer, Billy Hart, told the New York Times that the Kennedy Center’s renaming “evidently” played a role in the decision. The move follows Chuck Redd’s decision to drop out of a Christmas Eve concert, prompting Richard Grenell, the center’s interim president and former acting director of national intelligence during Trump’s first term, to threaten a $1 million lawsuit against Redd over what Grenell blasted as a “political stunt.” Other artists to cancel upcoming events include folk singer Kristy Lee and Doug Varone and Dancers, a dance company based in New York City.

The center’s board, most of whom were handpicked by Trump, voted earlier this month to rename the Kennedy Center to “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.” The decision has proved deeply unpopular, with one poll of more than 1,500 US adults conducted from December 20–22 by the Economist and YouGov finding only 18 percent approved. It has since sparked legal concerns, with many pointing to President Lyndon Johnson’s signing of a law that designated the arts institution as a “living memorial” to the late President Kennedy. Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), an ex officio member of the center’s board, has since filed a lawsuit against Trump, claiming that renaming required an act of Congress. 

In a social media post, Doug Varone and Dancers said that though they had opposed Trump’s move to fire board members who didn’t align with the president’s views in February, they decided to move ahead with an April 2026 performance to honor the “dance audiences in DC.”

“However, with the latest act of Donald J. Trump renaming the Center after himself, we can no longer permit ourselves nor ask our audiences to step inside this once great institution,” the dance company wrote on Monday. “The Kennedy Center was named in honor of our 35th President, who fervently believed that the arts were the beating heart of our nation, as well as an integral part of international diplomacy.”

“The artists who are now canceling shows were booked by the previous far left leadership,” Grenell wrote in a lengthy rant on X posted on Monday. “Boycotting the Arts to show you support the Arts is a form of derangement syndrome.”