{"id":17379,"date":"2026-01-07T22:21:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T22:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/as-far-as-congress-is-concerned-its-still-the-kennedy-center\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T22:21:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T22:21:09","slug":"as-far-as-congress-is-concerned-its-still-the-kennedy-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/as-far-as-congress-is-concerned-its-still-the-kennedy-center\/","title":{"rendered":"As Far As Congress Is Concerned, It\u2019s Still The Kennedy Center"},"content":{"rendered":"<div xmlns:xlink=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/1999\/xlink\">\n<div>\n<p>                                <bsp-timestamp data-timestamp=\"1767655024000\" data-recent-thresholdinhours=\"1\">                    <template data-date-tpl>Updated [hour]:[minute] [AMPM] [timezone], [monthFull] [day], [year]<\/template>                    <span data-date><\/span>                <\/bsp-timestamp>            <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>                                    <bsp-page-actions>                            <\/bsp-page-actions>                                                            <\/div>\n<div>\n<p>WASHINGTON (AP) &mdash; President <span><a data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/donald-trump\">Donald Trump<\/a><\/span>  may have his name on the building, but it&rsquo;s still the Kennedy Center to Congress. <\/p>\n<p>A <span><a data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/rules.house.gov\/sites\/evo-subsites\/rules.house.gov\/files\/documents\/cds92500.PDF\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bipartisan spending package<\/a><\/span>  released Monday by House Speaker Mike Johnson includes $32 million for operating expenses at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts through Sept. 30, 2027. <\/p>\n<p>Trump made a <span><a data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/trump-kennedy-center-board-chairman-firings-21cd0018c6e9f591d59becea8573d8c0\">series of leadership changes<\/a><\/span>  at the center shortly after he took office in 2025 that ended with the Republican president&rsquo;s handpicked board of trustees voting in December to rebrand the venue as the Trump Kennedy Center by <span><a data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/trump-kennedy-center-performing-arts-board-rename-ffb6829221bddc012c24ce696ebf0633\">adding his name to Kennedy&rsquo;s<\/a><\/span>  on the exterior of the building and the website. <\/p>\n<p>The Kennedy Center said the vote recognized Trump&rsquo;s work to revitalize an institution he had criticized as being too liberal-leaning. But since he took over the center, numerous <span><a data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/kennedy-center-new-years-eve-canceled-db4bc44f0d95cb40f794f2cb737562a3\">artists have canceled appearances<\/a><\/span>ticket sales and attendance have fallen, and viewership for December&rsquo;s broadcast of the <span><a data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/kennedy-center-honors-trump-stallone-kiss-gaynor-1af0fffa8f79aab38f5b57297519730d\">Kennedy Center Honors<\/a><\/span>  program &mdash; which he predicted would soar because he was the host &mdash; was down by about 35% compared to the 2024 show. <\/p>\n<p>After Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, Congress passed a law the following year naming the center as a living memorial to the Democrat. <span><a data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/uscode\/text\/20\/76j\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The law explicitly prohibits<\/a><\/span>  the board of trustees from making the center into a memorial to anyone else, and from putting another person&rsquo;s name on the building&rsquo;s exterior. The board&rsquo;s vote is the subject of a lawsuit in federal court. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/trump-kennedy-center-congress-republicans-34c48872cf3a5cfee996aca73ec7141f\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Updated [hour]:[minute] [AMPM] [timezone], [monthFull] [day], [year] WASHINGTON (AP) &mdash; President Donald Trump may have his name on the building, but it&rsquo;s still the Kennedy Center to Congress. A bipartisan spending package released Monday by House Speaker Mike Johnson includes $32 million for operating expenses at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17380,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trump"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}