By Jacob Bogage and Steve Holland
WASHINGTON, Sept 18 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday refused to say whether he would attempt to demolish the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the iconic facility on Washington’s Potomac River.
Speaking from the Oval Office, Trump repeated his belief that the center should append his name to the building in exchange for his work to raise money to renovate the facility. He falsely claimed the center faced long-term financial strains that required dramatic action, although the facility posted profits in seven of the past nine years, according to its tax filings.
“I think the Trump administration should be recognized as having saved the Kennedy Center because nobody else remembers,” Trump said.
The Kennedy Center board, which has said the facility requires a $257 million renovation, earlier this week voted to close the facility for two years for the project. US District Judge Christopher Cooper subsequently ordered the Trump administration to explain whether the closure violates a court order limiting its ability to shut down.
Cooper also ordered the administration to provide 30 days’ notice before taking steps to demolish the building.
“President Trump is holding the Kennedy Center hostage,” said Norm Eisen and Nathaniel Zelinsky, attorneys representing U.S. Representative Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat and ex-officio member of the center’s board who is leading litigation against the administration over its plans for the facility.
Representatives for the center did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.
The board, chaired by Trump and controlled by his appointees, earlier this year attempted to rename the facility the “Trump-Kennedy Center” and went so far as to add the president’s name to the building. After Cooper ruled that only Congress could rename the center, the board installed a tarp over the front facade of the building that has remained there as the legal fight continues.
Trump told reporters on Friday that adding his name to the building would be a show of “bipartisanship,” because Trump is a Republican and Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963, was a Democrat.
He called Cooper “hostile,” and described the center — which features a concert hall, opera house, theater and 12 additional performance and meeting spaces — as a “dump.”
(Reporting by Jacob Bogage and Steve Holland; Editing by Sam Holmes)
