In multiple images, the words “Kennedy Center DEMOLISHED” could be seen at the top of what appeared to be a poster viewed by the president. Credit…Kenny Holston/The New York Times
SOURCE: NY TIMES
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/17/us/politics/trump-kennedy-center-photos.html
It is the picture that has Washington in its latest uproar.
Late Wednesday night, photojournalists captured images through the windows of Air Force One that showed President Trump reviewing a large poster board with what looked like a rendering of a construction site beneath three very visible words: “Kennedy Center DEMOLISHED.”
The photos raise many questions that the White House has so far refused to answer. Roma Daravi, the Trump-allied spokesperson for the Kennedy Center, isn’t talking either.
There is one other person captured clearly in the images of Mr. Trump reviewing the demolition poster board plan: Bill Pulte, a Trump loyalist who is the nation’s top housing official (he also did a stint this year as the acting director of national intelligence).
The photos have already been incorporated into a previously filed lawsuit over the fate of the Kennedy Center, which closed this week after a disastrous year and a half under Mr. Trump’s stewardship that saw plummeting ticket sales and a talent exodus.
The lawsuit was filed by Representative Joyce Beatty, Democrat of Ohio, who is suing the Kennedy Center as a board member. In federal court, she has objected to the temporary closure of the institution this week for what center officials say are severe safety concerns over fallen ceiling plaster.
A judge on Thursday denied her request for an emergency hearing, allowing the center to remain closed for now. But the judge also reminded the administration that it had promised in another lawsuit over the center to give notice of any plans for demolition. Such notice must be provided 30 days in advance, the judge ordered.
In a filing earlier Thursday, Ms. Beatty’s lawyers had expressed alarm about the photos and asked the judge to make “crystal clear” that officials could not just demolish the center.
The filing also made note of the president’s recent comments that he would withhold funding for much-needed renovations to the building, essentially condemning it, if he was not allowed to add his name to the face of it.
“I think that the Trump administration should certainly have recognition,” Mr. Trump told reporters in North Carolina on Wednesday, before he boarded the plane. “Because frankly, if we don’t do that, it’s going to close. It’ll end up being ripped down.”
That is the opposite of what he promised in February, when he said, “I’m not ripping it down.”
Of course, Mr. Trump also surprised everyone by demolishing the East Wing after he promised that the construction of the White House ballroom would not “interfere” with the building. This is a pattern of behavior that dates back to 1980, when he blew up the old Bonwit Teller building on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan so that he could raise Trump Tower. He promised to preserve the treasured limestone friezes atop the old building but destroyed them, infuriating New Yorkers.
Might Mr. Trump have meant for the public to see him contemplating the Kennedy Center’s destruction on Wednesday night? Why put secret demolition plans on such a large poster board, spelling out the word “DEMOLISHED” in all caps in large red type, and then study those plans next to a window on a tarmac crawling with photographers with long lenses who are there to photograph him specifically?
After he disembarked, the president waved to the press, turned and walked away. He did not take any questions.