US president Donald Trump reportedly lost his cool during a call regarding the Kennedy Centre, with a source close to the matter describing the blows traded down the phone as "f**king crazy". The phone call came just before the board voted Tuesday to shut down the John F. Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts on Tuesday (September 15).
Board votes to close venue after judge blocks rename
The decision by the board, which is heavily stacked with a number of key MAGA allies and is chaired by the President himself, came less than two hours after a federal judge blocked the centre from adding Trump's name to its facade for the second time in five months.
The shutdown followed a ruling by US District Judge Christopher Cooper that prevented the board from displaying Trump's name on the exterior of the building, either in the form of "renovated and restored by Donald J. Trump" on the main building or "President Donald J. Trump Plaza" on the site.
Trump screamed at Democrat Joyce Beatty
A source familiar with the call spoke to CNN, recounting that the US President went ballistic during his phone conversation with the Kennedy Centre board. Trump reportedly screamed at Democrat Joyce Beatty, whose lawsuit to block Trump led to Cooper's ruling on the renaming of the performing arts facility.
The 47th President of the United States apparently told the congresswoman that she had "never built anything". Beatty, meanwhile, dubbed Trump as "ignorant" and responsible for the Kennedy Centre's financial woes.
The 79-year-old congresswoman sat down with MS NOW's The Weeknight programme on Tuesday to reveal that Trump flew "into a tantrum" on the call. "It was the most unprofessional thing I have ever witnessed or been a part of," she told the cable news channel formerly known as MSNBC.
"He went into name-calling—everything from trying to say that I was an obstructionist, I was dumb. He said, 'I think you're incompetent.' And I said, 'I know you're incompetent.'"
She told the television programme that she "was not going to let him call me awful things" as he berated her down the phone. She continued: "He said he was going to hold me responsible if something fell out of the ceiling and killed someone. And I told him, I said, 'You're already killing people. We're at war.'"
When the US President fired back that Beatty had never "built anything," she returned his serve with a retort about Trump's bankruptcies. "It really went there," she added.
President lashes out at judge and threatens renovation
The President also lashed out at the District Court judge who handed down the ruling to block the centre's renaming, dubbing Cooper as "very hostile and conflicted." Cooper wrote in his ruling that no name can be added to the Kennedy Centre without congressional approval.
"Simply put, Defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Centre without Congress's blessing," he wrote. "The board resolution bucks a federal court order and a statute Congress enacted."
Beatty has since issued a public statement regarding Cooper's ruling. "The law is extremely clear: The John F. Kennedy Centre is named for President Kennedy—and no one else. But President Trump is holding the Kennedy Centre hostage unless he can put his name on this sacred memorial," she said. "The Court just rejected this proposal for the second time. This unlawfulness is as breathtaking as it is wrong, and it needs to stop."
After the ruling, Trump threatened on Truth Social that if an appellate court or the Supreme Court didn't overturn Cooper's ruling, he would block a USD$257 million (£190 million) renovation of the building. "If the ruling is a negative one, which it should not be, and is not overturned by the US Supreme Court," he said in the post, "the Reconstruction and the Renovation of The Kennedy Centre will not take place."
The board cited "hazardous" conditions as it voted to close the venue for renovations.
Ongoing saga since Trump returned to office
Tuesday's developments are just the latest twists in the ongoing saga of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Centre for the Performing Arts since Trump returned to the Oval Office. He wasted no time in naming himself chairman of the centre's board and announced plans to reshape its programming upon his return to the White House.
The Kennedy Centre, which acts as a memorial to the assassinated former US president John F. Kennedy, opened in 1971 with the world premiere of Leonard Bernstein's requiem mass for Kennedy. Over the decades, it has been home to the Washington National Opera and the National Symphony Orchestra and has hosted such performers as Mikhail Baryshnikov and Wynton Marsalis. It also hosts the annual Kennedy Centre Honours, recognising the lifetime of achievement of leading artists.
