By [贝琪·克莱因]
12分钟前
发布于 2026年3月16日，美国东部时间下午3:17
一名工作人员于2026年2月2日穿过华盛顿特区约翰·F·肯尼迪表演艺术中心的州立大厅。
Al Drago/路透社/资料图
美国总统唐纳德·特朗普亲自挑选的肯尼迪中心董事会周一投票决定，将这座历史悠久的表演艺术机构关闭两年进行翻新。
该艺术中心在新闻稿中表示，这次投票是全票通过的。
特朗普今年早些时候宣布了这一关闭计划。董事会周一对其计划表示支持——该董事会去年曾投票将该建筑群更名为“特朗普肯尼迪中心”——这一结果在预料之中，也是特朗普试图在首都强加其风格和文化品味的最新举措。
“董事会现在决定有点晚了，因为我们已经宣布了这一计划，”特朗普在会议开始时表示。“这些只是小细节，但我认为大家都同意，”他补充说，翻新所需的新座椅和大理石已经采购完毕。
他补充说，关闭“将使我们能够更快地完成工程”。
根据国会规定担任当然成员的董事会成员获许参加白宫会议，但无权投票。
来自罗德岛州的民主党参议员谢尔登·怀特豪斯（Sheldon Whitehouse）因担任监督该艺术中心的委员会排名成员而成为当然成员，他拒绝出席，并在一份声明中表示，他拒绝在此次被他称为“骗局”的会议上“充当道具”。
俄亥俄州民主党众议员乔伊斯·比蒂（Joyce Beatty）已就特朗普和董事会提起诉讼，她在会议前告诉美国有线电视新闻网（CNN），她计划“大声表达反对意见”。
比蒂的部分投诉涉及周一的会议——特别是确保她和其他当然成员能事先收到翻新计划文件，并允许她参与投票。一名联邦法官周六裁定，要求特朗普政府交出相关文件，但未就比蒂是否有权投票做出裁决。比蒂在声明中称这些文件“不充分”。
此外，该诉讼还更广泛地涉及中心关闭问题。比蒂的投诉引用了多名表演艺术专家的宣誓声明，他们警告称，这将对预订、捐赠者和员工产生重大影响。
“根据我的专业判断，在宣布的规模和时间表下关闭肯尼迪中心所造成的损害是严重的、紧迫的，且无法迅速扭转，”纽约爱乐乐团名誉主席黛博拉·博尔达（Deborah Borda）在其宣誓声明中表示。
“被从日程中剔除的来访表演者将寻找替代场地，不会很快返回。离职的员工将难以替代。转移捐款的捐赠者将形成新的机构忠诚度。那些不再习惯参加演出的观众……需要数年的努力和投入才能恢复，”博尔达补充道。她曾监督过包括洛杉矶华特迪士尼音乐厅和纽约大卫·格芬音乐厅在内的多个主要场馆的重大翻新和建设项目。
前肯尼迪中心舞蹈项目助理经理马洛里·米勒（Mallory Miller）则描述了她的前团队长期精心维护的与芭蕾舞团的合作关系——她认为这些关系现在可能面临风险。
她在声明中写道，关闭“将切断现有的所有善意，并可能被这些公司视为彻底破裂而非暂时停摆”。
在重返白宫的第一年，特朗普解散了中心董事会并安插了忠诚者，这些人选举他担任主席。他们重塑了中心的领导层和人员配置，调整了节目安排，并获得了国会2.57亿美元的翻新资金。这些变化导致门票销售下滑、大牌艺术家取消演出，一些人认为这正是促使中心考虑暂时关闭的原因。
特朗普对肯尼迪中心的一些负面报道表示不满，周五宣布计划罢免其总裁——他的长期盟友理查德·格伦内尔（Richard Grenell），由设施运营副总裁马特·弗洛克（Matt Floca）接任。
“有报道说他被解雇了，但其实没有，”特朗普周一表示，“他在这里待了很短时间，用一年时间和马特及其他人熟悉情况。现在马特将接管。”
“他是建筑方面的专家，非常擅长这方面，我认为马特也想管理这个设施。他已经爱上了它，我觉得他会干得不错，但如果我觉得他干得不好，我会说，‘马特，你被解雇了，我要找别人来’，”特朗普说。
Trump’s handpicked Kennedy Center board approves two-year closure
By [Betsy Klein]
12 min ago
PUBLISHED Mar 16, 2026, 3:17 PM ET
A worker walks through the Hall of States at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, in Washington, DC, on February 2, 2026.
Al Drago/Reuters/File
President Donald Trump’s handpicked Kennedy Center board of trustees voted Monday to close the storied performing arts institution for two years for renovations.
The vote, the arts center said in a press release, was unanimous.
Trump announced the planned closure earlier this year. Monday’s stamp of approval from the board — which last year voted to rename the complex the Trump Kennedy Center — was widely expected and is just the latest effort to impose the president’s style and cultural tastes in the nation’s capital.
“It’s a little late for the board because we’ve already announced it,” Trump as the meeting was convening. “These are minor details, but I think everybody agrees,” he said, adding that new seating and marble for the renovation has already been purchased.
The closure, he added, “will enable us to complete the work much faster.”
Ex-officio members of the board whose position is mandated by Congress were permitted to attend the meeting at the White House but were not allowed to vote.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat who serves as an ex-officio member because he is ranking member of a committee that oversees the arts center, declined to attend, saying in a statement that he refused to “serve as a prop” at the meeting, which he described as a “sham.”
Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, who’s filed a lawsuit against Trump and the board, told CNN before the meeting that she planned to be “vocal.”
Part of Beatty’s complaint has been about Monday’s meeting — specifically ensuring that she and other ex-officio members would receive documents about the renovation plans beforehand and that she would be allowed to participate and vote. A federal judge ruled Saturday requiring the Trump administration to turn over relevant documents, but he did not weigh in on whether Beatty could vote. Beatty called the documents “inadequate” in a statement.
Separately, the lawsuit deals with the center’s closure more broadly. Beatty’s complaint cites sworn declarations from multiple performing arts experts who warn about major impacts to bookings, donors and staffing.
“In my professional judgment, the harms from a closure of the Kennedy Center at the scale and on the timeline announced are severe, immediate, and cannot be quickly reversed,” Deborah Borda, the president emerita of the New York Philharmoni, said in her sworn declaration.
“The visiting performers who are removed from the schedule will find alternative venues and will not return quickly. The staff who depart will be difficult to replace. The donors who redirect their giving will develop new institutional loyalties. The audiences who fall out of the habit of attending will … require years of effort and investment to recover,” added Borda, who’s overseen major renovations and construction at multiple major venues, including the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and David Geffen Hall in New York City.
And Mallory Miller, the Kennedy Center’s former assistant manager of dance programming, described the long-cultivated relationships her former team has worked to manage with ballet companies — that she thinks could now be at risk.
The closure “will sever whatever goodwill remains and will likely be understood by those companies as a definitive rupture, not a temporary pause,” she wrote in a declaration.
During his first year back in office, Trump gutted the center’s board and installed loyalists who elected him chairman. They have reshaped its leadership and staffing, overhauled its programming and secured $257 million in congressional funding for renovations. Taken together, the changes have led to slumping ticket sales and major artists canceling their appearances, which some saw as driving the desire to temporarily close.
Trump has been unhappy with some of the negative publicity around the Kennedy Center, announcing Friday he planned to replace its president, his longtime ally Richard Grenell, with Matt Floca, its vice president of facilities operations.
“There was a story he got fired; he didn’t get fired. He was here for a short period of time, for a year, figuring it out with Matt and everybody else. And Matt now is going to take over,” Trump said Monday, while thanking Grenell and praising Floca.
“He’s a pro at construction, great at construction, and I think Matt would like to run the facility too. He’s fallen in love with it, and I think he’d do a good job, but if I don’t think he will do a good job, I’ll say, ‘Matt, you’re fired. I’m getting somebody else,’” Trump said.