JFK’s Niece Says People Would ‘Flood’ Back to Kennedy Center if Trump Left - Newsweek

Kerry Kennedy, a niece of former President John F. Kennedy, said that people would “come flooding back” to the Kennedy Center if President Donald Trump stepped away from the institution, as thousands gathered outside the historic venue Friday to protest his plans for its renovation and renaming.

“Keep your name off our buildings, Mr. Trump. Do your job,” Kennedy said on CNN’s The Lead.

Her comments came as activists encircled the Kennedy Center in a human chain Friday night, chanting “hands off” as they protested Trump’s plans. The event was organized by Hands Off the Arts, whose goals include reclaiming the Kennedy Center from "authoritarian overreach.”

Newsweek reached out to the Trump administration and the Kennedy Center for comment.

The Kennedy Center laid off more than a dozen employees Friday, according to three people familiar with the cuts who spoke on the condition of anonymity, The Washington Post reported.

President Donald Trump on Friday defended his push to put his name on the Kennedy Center, saying the venue had lost tens, even hundreds, of millions of dollars for many years and that fixing it would require continued subsidies.

Trump has pushed for a major renovation and reconstruction of the Kennedy Center, while also seeking to have his name added to the building. Congress has already approved $257 million for the work, but Trump has said the renovation will not proceed unless the center is allowed to recognize him on the building.

The Kennedy Center board voted on Tuesday to close its main building while keeping a newer, significantly smaller theater wing called the REACH open.

“I’d like to be able to save it [Kennedy Center] but it’s gonna take a lot of subsidy into the future,” Trump told reporters Wednesday, saying the building is in “very very” bad and dangerous shape.

“And for us, as an administration to want to do that, I think the Trump administration should be recognized.”

Then Thursday, a judge ordered the Kennedy Center to provide 30 days' notice before making any major physical changes to the building, including demolishing it.

Also Thursday, a photo circulated appearing to show the president looking at demolition plans.

“This is the monument to our slain president and this is also the monument to arts in our entire country,” she told CNN. “These are the actions of a petty tyrant who can’t get his way and because he can’t add his name to it, he’s going to blow it up.”

The Kennedy Center said its chairman and board of trustees are working hard to save the institution.

The goal has always been to address critical infrastructure and safety needs, and modernizing and preserving the institution “after it was neglected for decades, left in complete and total disrepair," Roma Daravi, vice president of public relations for the Kennedy Center, told Newsweek on Thursday. Daravi was among those laid off Friday, The Washington Post reported.

In late August, Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers warned that the center could be destroyed and replaced with another venue if it cannot undergo the extensive renovations sought by President Donald Trump.

DOJ attorney Brantley T. Mayers described the building as “dangerously dilapidated, outdated, and decrepit” in the filing, arguing that the center would continue to deteriorate without Trump’s remodeling.

The Kennedy Center was designated by Congress in 1971 as a living memorial to John F. Kennedy. CNN Chief Political Analyst David Axelrod said on Outfront Friday that Trump’s plans would be “like taking a wrecking ball to the Washington Monument or the Lincoln Memorial or the Jefferson Memorial.”

Tim Naftali, former director of the Nixon Presidential Library and CNN Presidential Historian, likened the effort to Franklin Roosevelt adding his name to the Lincoln Memorial.

“That would have been an absurdity, people would have thought that he had lost his mind,” Naftali said on CNN’s Outfront. “And yet in this era, people aren't questioning the president’s focus.”

The center is also temporarily closed for at least seven days as officials assess safety risks in portions of the main building with severe structural deterioration, Matt Floca, the Kennedy Center’s executive director and chief operating officer, said Thursday to the Associated Press. The closure may be extended after an evaluation next week.

Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here.

Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Gray R. Thomas

Corrected on 09/18/2026 at 11:50 p.m. ET to remove extraneous text