Curtains for the Kennedy Center?
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Wednesday, September 16th, and it only took a couple of hours for this curtain to come down. We start here. After learning Donald Trump's name won't go up on the Kennedy Center, his allies on the board announced the Kennedy Center shutting down. To opponents, this is a hostage taking. Is this about construction or a tribute? What's worse, letting a Russian oligarch pay for your wedding or a complete stranger? The
president doesn't know who this person is. I think other members of the family don't know who this person is.
The new denials from the Trump family. And this is not what the FBI director wanted to be debating.
Why do I want to leave with my chin and get into bestiality?
That was my initial response, Senator. The latest concern about the Bureau's recruiting problem. From ABC News, this is Start Here. I'm Brad Milkey. I have been to Washington a bunch of times. I have never been to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. I'm not unique in this, right? Most Americans have never, will never go to a play or an opera or a concert at this marble building on the shores of the Potomac. So why has it been in the headlines so much since President Trump came into office last year? Why do we care? Well, first of all, it's this nation's preeminent government-funded art space. More importantly, though, it is run the way any high-level government project is run.
Why did the Kennedy Center board announce it was shutting down after the judge blocked Trump’s name?
like the Smithsonian or our monuments or our scientific laboratories. The government may pay for the upkeep of the facility, but it doesn't impose an ideology on it. If you hire world-class museum directors and they say, this stuff is worth exhibiting, you exhibit it. If the artistic director says this is art worth showing, you show it. Under President Trump, that precept has been tossed out the window. Political appointees have made it clear that if the Kennedy Center is not showing work that they feel will personally reflect well on Donald Trump's vision of America... they won't have a job much longer. Trump supporters were named to the board of directors. Trump himself was personally named chairman.
And all this came to a head when he announced the building would no longer just bear John F. Kennedy's name, but his own. Some people refer to it as the Trump Kennedy Center. To many in Washington, This fight over a building's name has come to symbolize something more. A fight over whether a president can declare himself the face and arbiter of American governance. Like, is the US government him? Or is the US government all of us? This question has been posed to several judges. Trump's name went up, it's come down, it's been covered by scaffolding. Yesterday, a judge seemed to issue a pretty conclusive ruling against him But within an hour, the Kennedy Center board had declared it was shutting down. Washington's most lauded arts venue is shuttered.
ABC's national correspondent Stephen Portnoy starts us off in Washington. Stephen, I mean, you've been to this venue many times, right? Walk me through what's been happening
here. Married to a music major. I won't say dragged to the symphony, but pleasantly attending the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center. Look, what happened yesterday was remarkable in so many different ways, Brad, because you had a federal judge, Judge Christopher Cooper, issuing that order saying that the board is essentially trying to thumb its nose at his own decision and at a statute that's been on the books for more than four decades, which said that the Kennedy Center is D.C.' 's only memorial to the late John F. Kennedy. and that there can be no other memorial in the public areas of the Kennedy Center. And what the judge said is that after he issued a ruling in May to take President Trump's name off the side of the building, the board basically thumbed its nose and decided to, in his words, buck a federal court order and a statute Congress enacted by passing another resolution last month that would add President Trump's name back on the side of the building as the man who renovated and restored...
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–1:50
2
Why did the Kennedy Center board announce it was shutting down after the judge blocked Trump’s name?
1:50–7:52
3
What legal arguments did Judge Christopher Cooper use to keep the Kennedy Center’s name unchanged?
7:52–14:23
4
How did the board justify closing the venue as a “structural emergency”?
14:23–19:41
5
What is the significance of the Russian oligarch’s funding of Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding party?
19:41–24:59
6
How did the Trump family publicly distance themselves from the oligarch’s involvement?
24:59–30:08