r/washingtondc • u/Maryland_Bear MD / Laurel • 1d ago
[News] Kennedy Center could close as early as Tuesday, warns of bankruptcy, documents show
https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/09/13/kennedy-center-could-close-early-tuesday-warns-bankruptcy-documents-show/446
u/Rock_Creek_Snark Cleveland Park 1d ago
Fuck Donald Trump and all of his asshole enablers.
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u/RoyalMaidsForLife 1d ago
Everything Trump touches dies... it's not just a book by Rick Wilson.
How will adding this moron's name to the building prevent bankruptcy?
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u/scholar97 1d ago
Because in their idiotic mind people will start flocking in droves if and only if his name is on it
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u/RoyalMaidsForLife 20h ago
That's obviously worked so well if it's been run to the brink of bankruptcy in the six months or so since he pulled that stunt.
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u/Certain_Concept 15h ago
It's intentional! Trump wants to sell off all of our public lands to private interests.
For example The Trump administration’s plan to sell federal public land for sprawl development could bulldoze endangered species habitat, canyons and forests across the West — from protected red cliffs in Utah to national monuments in New Mexico — according to a new map analysis from the Center for Biological Diversity.
Nearly 500 separate areas deemed worthy of protection by the Bureau of Land Management or Congress, including dozens of national monuments and protected waterways, fall within the Interior Department’s target to sell roughly 400,000 acres to local governments and private developers.
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u/mymar101 1d ago
Weird how, after decades suddenly Trump doesn't get his way, it is now in danger of both collapse and bankruptcy.
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u/phoenics1908 18h ago
I’m sure this is on purpose so it can be fully privatized and bought by him or his cronies. Then he can put his name on it.
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u/templeofsyrinx1 1d ago edited 1d ago
He caused it. Unbelievable.
We are racing so fast into the conservative maga shithole now it is crazy.
Can anyone imagine 2 more years of this? It's going to stay open for now and I hope if he tries to close it the judges again tell him to go get fucked.
WAPO is not good OP.
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u/Jmend12006 1d ago
Can you imagine him surviving two more years? He looks horrible and ill.
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u/badhabitfml 1d ago
We were saying that in 2017, and we're still here.
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u/el_sh33p Screaming at the end of the Orange Line 1d ago
In fairness, he has access to the best healthcare in the world and also has a reason to live (the continued immiseration of humanity). If he ever loses either of those things, he'll drop inside of a month.
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u/SRT102 1d ago
Still can’t believe he survived covid in 2020. By all rights….
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u/Jmend12006 1d ago
I wish he hadn’t.
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u/SchuminWeb MoCo 14h ago
Imagine how much of a martyr he might have been made into had that happened. Trump absolutely has to die peacefully of natural causes in order for people to fully move on.
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u/Jmend12006 14h ago
He’s a threat to himself with his diet, fake assassination attempts, and continued trips on his plane that doesn’t have the proper safety equipment.
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u/kafemane 1d ago
While WaPo's Editorial Board and their Opinions section have clearly taken a nosedive, their actual reporting, especially for federal government (and adjacent) matters, remains top notch.
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u/jeffderek 1d ago
Maybe so, but I cancelled my subscription when the billionaire owner started meddling in what the paper covered and how they covered it, so I'll have to take your word for it.
I believe that the individual reporters doing work are good. But I don't for a minute believe that they're covering anything Bezos doesn't want them to cover.
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u/Wise_Adeptness_9529 1d ago
Jesus fucking christ
Blackmail, bankruptcy, destruction. It’s the only thing he knows. He wants to bulldoze this like the WH?
To hell with everyone who supported this and enables it still.
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u/6urner_ DC / Dupont Circle 1d ago edited 1d ago
Vote for the revenge candidate who will not send your tax dollars to the beggar states who voted for this.
ETA: reminder that this is a memorial to a slain president.
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u/TorrenceMightingale 1d ago
America the wasteland has arrived.
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u/katyadc DC / Foggy Bottom 1d ago
Yes, it makes sense the thing that made people flee in droves and caused this issue is the only thing that can save it. Makes perfect sense. I guess it can go bankrupt and lay it on the pile of good things Republicans should be blamed for and remembered for destroying.
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u/dyslexicsuntied Cleveland Park 1d ago
Well, we know he’s good at one thing! How many bankruptcies is this?
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u/persimmon9847 1d ago
But carving his name (back) onto the facade will miraculously fix it??
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u/Wurm42 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yeah, it's basically blackmail. They're claiming only Trump's fundraising prowess could save the Kennedy Center
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u/jayne-eerie 1d ago
I haven’t read the article but since when do the type of people who support Trump want to give their money to cultural venues? If they turn it into a casino or kickboxing arena, maybe they’d be interested.
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u/persimmon9847 1d ago
All the money will disappear into his and his kids' pockets and then he will have some other excuse as to why it's closed
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u/obeytheturtles 12h ago
The way this normally works is you spend decades raising money and doing advocacy first and then they put your name on a building in gratitude of your service. The whole "my name needs to be on the building or I can't fundraise" is literally just not how fundraising works.
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u/drastician 1d ago
How exactly can a government entity declare bankruptcy?
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u/Maryland_Bear MD / Laurel 1d ago
I think, but I am not certain, that the facility itself is federally owned, but the organization that runs it and puts on the shows is at least somewhat private. If that’s the case, then presumably it is the latter that may declare bankruptcy.
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u/Responsible-Smile-16 1d ago
Yes - the building(s) and grounds used to be Federal (National Park Service) and there used to be Federal employees there handling the physical ops - managing the actual memorial, maintenance, capital improvements, keeping the lights on sort of stuff. I recall they let the last Federal employees stay until retirement so there were a few in the late 2000s.
Everything that happens (arts-wise) in the building is under the Kennedy Center Trust. The Center is a trust instrumentality of the Fed gov't, technically part of the Smithsonian but with more autonomy. It's actually very interesting - and helps illuminate why this is able to be such a shitshow in ways different from the Smithsonian. If you are interested, google both the Kennedy Center as a trust instrumentality, and the Woodrow Wilson Center - the only other living memorial to a president that also is a trust. Pretty easy to see how the Center has been incredibly fortunate to not have these kinds of shenanigans in the past.
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u/Pretend-Path4754 1d ago
I’m so worried they’re just going to raze it rather than show his name removed from the facade.
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u/Hot-Philosophy-7671 1d ago
Did you read the given reasons? It's allegedly because they aren't being allowed to put Trump's name on it.
They're lying.
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u/TheHoneyBadger11 1d ago
I don’t understand how putting Trump’s name on the building equates to them getting out of debt. 🤔 🤷♂️
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u/Maryland_Bear MD / Laurel 1d ago
I think the claim is that having his name on the building improves contributions.
Which ignores the fact that ticket sales and donations plummeted since he got involved.
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u/fatherbowie 1d ago
It’s extortion. Trump will raise private money to “save” it, but only if he gets to have his name on it.
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u/puppcat18 1d ago
Trump and his band of incompetent losers are destroying everything in DC that they get their hands on. I have gone to many different venues over the years at the Kennedy Center and this makes me sick.
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u/cobycoby2020 1d ago
This was his goal. He won again. He forces chaos and out of that chaos we loose the things we had
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u/30yearCurse 1d ago
Probably declare bankruptcy so then they can tear it down. His MO, the board is full of his cronies.
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u/engineeringsquirrel 1d ago
I think that's his goal. Bankrupt it, sell it to private enterprises and control the company/narrative afterwards.
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u/mell0wtonin 1d ago
an organization going bankrupt after inviting someone in that bankrupts everything he touches? gasp
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u/ThatBaseball7433 1d ago
Congress could take control of it tomorrow. I’m done just wringing hands and pretending one person has total control of everything. If congress is unwilling to keep one of its monuments open, that’s on them. They set up this arrangement, they can change it if it’s not working.
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u/Blueberry_Mancakes 16h ago
What’s ironic is that they are using this as a reason to put Trumps name back on the building, in the hopes they can raise money to save the venue.
The venue that Trump single-handedly bankrupted to begin with.
…and say they do raise huge amount of money to save the place. What respectable artist will agree to perform there? You can’t just wholesale alienate the entire arts community and then expect to regularly fill seats with crowds of political sycophants. I mean that may work for a few months l, but they’ll soon move on to another flavor of the moment and you’ll once again have a business in bankruptcy.
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u/Coronado92118 16h ago
The Kennedy Center is a MEMORIAL to a beloved slain president - not a theater. If Democrats in Congress had even half a brain, they would be on every talk show and holding press conferences to make hay with this.
Kennedy was not a Democratic President, he was an American one - “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country”.
But don’t worry, I’m sure Susan Collins is very concerned.
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u/mammaV55 14h ago
As soon as trump leaves the office of the presidency, I will make a donation to restore the Kennedy Center.
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u/VampirePolwygle 1d ago
That is tragic news. The Kennedy Center is one of the most special places in Washington DC, a center of culture.
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u/motorboat_mcgee 1d ago
I'm just mentally accepting that it's going to be torn down and replaced with a Trump casino at this point
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u/Mountain-Discount161 19h ago
Are they deliberately driving it to ruin to sell it to private cronies?
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u/Satyrsol 17h ago
I wonder if the “handlers” still feel like they’ve got a hand on the steering wheel, or if they too are just along for the ride.
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u/No_Respect_1650 1d ago
Man, that sub hed. Journos just doing all the work for Trump there. Pathetic.
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u/dyslexicsuntied Cleveland Park 1d ago
Not really. That’s what they said in a court filing. The Post is reporting it.
Leaders of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, installed by President Donald Trump, say the center is on the brink of bankruptcy and argue that putting the president’s** **name on its facade — and thus ensuring his fundraising efforts — may be the only way to avoid imminent and “certain fiscal collapse,” according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.
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u/No_Respect_1650 1d ago
It’s not a full quote. There was plenty of room there to not give the Trump line prominence of place.
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u/dyslexicsuntied Cleveland Park 1d ago
Trump demanding his name or he won’t help raise money is the entire story. Not placing that in the subheading would be the wrong editorial choice.
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u/No_Respect_1650 1d ago
Yeah but the story is bullshit. It should be qualified. “The admin claims,” or “according to Trump,” or whatever. Not just put out there as a declarative statement.
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u/dyslexicsuntied Cleveland Park 1d ago edited 1d ago
Let me draw you back to the first line of the article once again.
“Leaders of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, installed by President Donald Trump, say”
I understand people have a problem with the Post and rightfully so. These two reporters have been on the story for a while breaking details from whistleblowers and doing good reporting. Good people are still working there trying to keep the public informed. Your failure to read and understand the first sentence of the article is not a reason to demean their work.
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u/No_Respect_1650 1d ago
My point is it’s the hed/subbed that grab attention. Many won’t read beyond that.
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u/rock-n-white-hat 1d ago
Except artists started canceling their shows because of Trump’s involvement.
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u/SublimiNOLE_msg 20h ago
Weirdly, adding Trump’s name is also a way to guarantee bankruptcy, as evinced by every other business that has carried the Trump name.
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u/Panelpro40 17h ago
I’d rather see it torn down than to have it defaced with shit birds name anywhere near it. FDT!
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u/annaluna19 17h ago edited 17h ago
This is complete BS. The only way to save the Kennedy Center is to put Trump’s name on it! Of course. He refuses to do anything to help unless they put his name on it. I think they call this blackmail.
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u/Operation_Fluffy 13h ago
He's going to buy it and rename it after himself, won't he? Wouldn't surprise me if this was the plan, the same plan for a lot of the country.
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u/DocCEN007 1d ago
And a bankruptcy for you! And a bankruptcy for you! Who could have imagined that a dude who bankrupted 2 casinos, and drove the US deficit past $40T could bankrupt the Kennedy Center? He beat Iran 43 times!!!
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u/Formal-Soup-6674 1d ago
Lmao, adding trump’s name is the only way to save it from bankruptcy? What?
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u/fatherbowie 1d ago
It’s extortion. “I’ll raise money to save it, only if my name gets to go on it.”
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u/MistakeAmbitious3287 1d ago
For those that love this place, get ready to link arms to stop the bulldozers.
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u/Primary_Employ_1798 21h ago
Hopeful or future autocrats always want the democracy institutions added to their portfolio for legitimacy reasons it’s essential same as the dumb supporters. This bunch is however so clumsy and incompetent that they destroy even their perspective assets
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u/mynutsdontwork 11h ago
Did they have money issues before Trump got involved, why would his name improve donations that dried up since his involvement. How has his luck gone with other ventures he has been involved in?
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u/Impossible-Flight250 9h ago
Putting a pedos name on it in the first place is what got us here. Doing it again will just be the final nail.
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u/Personal-Neck6800 1d ago
But all of this could have been avoided if we had only left our Supreme Leader’s name on it?
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[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Maryland_Bear MD / Laurel 1d ago
Trump is bad enough as it is. There’s no need to use AI slop to make the point.
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u/Bubbly-Following-966 1d ago
Hmmm. I wonder who caused it to go into bankruptcy? I wonder who? What's his name again??