Trump says he will install himself as president of the Kennedy Center

President Trump announced his intention on Friday to bring John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington more firmly under his control and said he would reject more board members and install himself as chairman.

“In my direction, we have to make the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, great again,” Mr. Trump wrote About the truth social, his social media platform.

Mr. Trump said he “would immediately end several people from the board, including the chairman who does not share our vision for a golden age in art and culture.”

He added: “We will soon announce a new board with a fantastic chairman, Donald J. Trump.”

Trump’s plan to clean the board and appoint itself was first reported Friday of the Atlantic Ocean. He published his message shortly thereafter.

The news stunned the world of art and culture, but was not a surprise to people talking to Mr. Trump. In the weeks following his election gains, Mr. Trump told people he wants to be chairman of the big Kennedy Center.

The current chairman is David M. Rubenstein, the financier and the philanthropist, who has held the position for more than a decade. Mr. Rubenstein’s Pension in January 2025 had been announced, but after Mr. Trump’s election said the Kennedy Center he would stay in the role until September 2026.

Mr. Rubenstein has hosted President Biden in one of his homes. But he has also maintained a heartfelt enough relationship with Trump, like Mr. Trump spoke to him for an interview for a book about presidents published in 2024.

Reached Friday night just before and after the president announced his announcement, several board members said they were caught ignorant by the news and had not yet been told by anyone whether they would be terminated or not.

During his first period, Mr. Trump with tradition by refusing to participate in the Kennedy Center -Head Certificate, the group’s Hallmark program after some Honore’s criticized him.

Mr. Trump’s plan to reintroduce the board would break with many years of precedent in the Kennedy Center, which has long been proud to be a tradition of Bipartisanship. It was the latest example of his efforts to increase the norms of Washington in the first 100 days of his second period.

The Kennedy Center’s Board of Directors, which has 36 members, has recently been evenly distributed between Republican and Democratic appointed. Members of the Board of Directors are appointed six years, which suggests that they should not be dismissed. But Mr. Over the past three weeks, Trump has tested the legal boundaries he can shoot.

In the last weeks of his administration, Joseph R. Biden Jr. A dozen vacant positions on the board and appointed some of his closest helpers, including Karine Jean-Pierre, the former press secretary of the White House and the political strategist Mike Donilon. The board is grossly divided between the Biden and Trump -appointed.

Current board members elected by Mr. Trump in his first period, includes Pam Bondi, his Attorney General and Elaine Chao, who was a transport secretary during his first period and is married to Senator Mitch McConnell.

Last month, the Trump Administration quietly dissolved the President’s Committee on Art and Humanities, part of a flurry of executive orders aimed at rolling back to the former administration’s policy for art, culture and historical memorial.

Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Mr. Rubenstein could not be reached for comment.

The leaders of the Kennedy Center had recently expressed optimism around Mr. Trump and said that Melania Trump, the first lady who serves as honorary chairman, had personally expressed interest in restoring the link to the center.