President Donald Trump has spent months trying to return the Kennedy Center to its former glory, and leftists have been trying to stop him at every turn. This week, the building did their work for them. A chunk of the Grand Foyer ceiling came crashing down onto the red carpet.
I’m guessing that’s still not enough proof for Democrats that the place needs work.
The collapse hit overnight into Thursday, after a powerful storm tore through Washington, D.C. Meteorologists say it was the strongest system to hit the city since the derecho that flattened trees and power lines back in 2012. This time, it took out part of the ceiling in one of the Kennedy Center's most recognizable rooms, leaving debris scattered across the carpet where donors and dignitaries usually walk.
Kennedy Center spokeswoman Roma Daravai wasted no time connecting the dots.
.@TKCOfficial ceiling collapsed, yet @wapo @nytimes @TheAtlantic @Reuters @AP @USATODAY — the list goes on — are nowhere to be found. 👀
— Roma Daravi (@romadaravi) September 5, 2026
Absolutely insane lack of journalistic integrity… the mainstream media are ignoring this breaking news bc it doesn’t fit their biased agenda… pic.twitter.com/pJqBlTw2Ml
There is no legitimate reason to further halt the renovations‼️The longer the delay, the worse the infrastructure gets‼️ https://t.co/VjAQpF6LOk
— Roma Daravi (@romadaravi) September 5, 2026
Last month, Justice Department lawyers told a federal court that the building's "dangerously dilapidated, outdated, and decrepit" condition, combined with millions of dollars in financial losses, has put the Kennedy Center in a "financial and structural death spiral." Fixing it, they said, will take two years of closure. Without that work, they warned, "the Center will deteriorate further into an unsafe, decrepit structure that will be required to be taken down, with a determination to follow on what to build on the site, such as a large outdoor amphitheater overlooking the Potomac River that has been proposed, by some, for many years."
The board already voted last month to move forward with a $250 million renovation plan. That plan, and the two-year closure it requires, remains tied up in litigation.
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The board has been pushing for this renovation for months, and the fight over Trump's name goes back even further. In July, an appeals court ruled against the administration's attempt to block Trump's name from being stripped off the building. Rather than keep fighting that battle, the board pivoted. It voted to have "Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump" inscribed on the building instead.
The left has given all sorts of excuses for why Trump can’t fix the building or have his name attached to it.
Maria Shriver, President John F. Kennedy’s niece, called the building a memorial to her uncle.
“The Kennedy Center was named after my uncle, President John F. Kennedy," she said. "It was named in his honor. He was a man who was interested in the arts, interested in culture, interested in education, language, history. He brought the arts into the White House, and he and my Aunt Jackie amplified the arts, celebrated the arts, stood up for the arts and artists." She continued, "It is beyond compression [sic] that this sitting president has sought to rename this great memorial dedicated to President Kennedy. It is beyond wild that he would think adding his name in front of President Kennedy's name is acceptable. It is not. Next thing perhaps he will want to rename JFK Airport, rename the Lincoln Memorial, the Trump Lincoln Memorial. The Trump Jefferson Memorial. The Trump Smithsonian. The list goes on."
The problem with that, of course, is that the Kennedy Center was never a memorial to begin with. Congress created it in 1958 as the National Cultural Center. It only added JFK's name to it after his assassination. Calling it a "memorial" gives people the wrong idea about what the place was actually built for, and Shriver knows it.
Further, if Democrats really believed this building were some sacred shrine to JFK, they might have noticed it was falling apart, or cared to do something about it now.
Trump was right. Again.
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