Kennedy Center board says venue could close soon due to financial woes

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National Kennedy Center board says venue could close soon due to financial woes September 14, 20264:43 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition A Martínez Kennedy Center board says venue could close soon due to financial woes Listen &middot; 3:18 3:18 Transcript Toggle more options Download Embed Embed "> <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/nx-s1-5968179/nx-s1-9925017" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Transcript NPR's A Martinez speaks with Washington Post arts and government reporter Jonathan Edwards about internal documents showing the Kennedy Center could close as soon as Tuesday. Sponsor Message Transcript A MARTÍNEZ, HOST: New reporting from The Washington Post shows that the Kennedy Center is likely to close as soon as Tuesday, as it's almost financially broke. That's according to the documents obtained by Post reporters. A new report set to be presented to the board of trustees this week, most of whom were appointed by President Trump, recommends putting the president's name on the building's facade to encourage him to help raise funds. To explain what's going on, we reached out to Jonathan Edwards. He covers how the Trump administration is influencing cultural institutions for The Washington Post. Jonathan, what do the documents that The Washington Post obtained show about how the Kennedy Center's leadership sees the financial state of the performing arts center? JONATHAN EDWARDS: Yeah. The board packet makes, you know, the connection between having President Trump's name on the Kennedy Center and the center's finances unusually explicit. It essentially says Trump has offered to raise the money necessary to keep the Kennedy Center from bankruptcy during this two years of renovations. But it also says, without quote-unquote appropriate recognition of Trump, he's unlikely to agree to oversee that renovation or lead the financial rescue. MARTÍNEZ: So unless his name's on the building, he won't support it or at least try to rally support for it. And just a note - the president's name was on the center. A court ruled against him, and then it had to come down. But essentially, it's like, if his name's not on the building, he won't really do much about it. EDWARDS: Correct. And that was made explicit by Commerce Secretary Lutnick late last month before a court hearing. He said much the same. MARTÍNEZ: Now, to think that it could be closing as soon as Tuesday - that, I think, is a big shock. So, I mean, how did the financial situation at the Kennedy Center become as bleak as it seemingly has been? EDWARDS: Well, we had the takeover of President Trump back last year in February. But, you know, there's a real dispute of that. The administration would argue that it goes - you know, happened - started well before then, that it was financial mismanagement and deferred maintenance under the previous leadership. But the internal records that we obtained for a previous story showed that ticket sales and fundraising deteriorated dramatically after Trump took over the institution and fell even further after his name was originally added in December. MARTÍNEZ: All right. Now, the board of trustees is also expected to vote this week on a resolution on renovations to the building. What can you tell us about that proposal? EDWARDS: Well, as you mentioned, you know, it could close as soon as Tuesday. You know, and it's got the two major decisions in front of it - the name, and then the renovation. As far as the renovation goes, you know, a lot of these things, you know, as the, you know, new regime mentions, you know, predate them. I mean, no one would disagree that renovations are necessary and have been for some time. It's just the degree to which they are needed and what the best possible solution is. You know, the Trump folks would say, hey, we need to close everything, and we need to close it now. On the other side, you know, folks would say, hey, we can do this in a phased approach - keep the center open and keep programming going while we do it. MARTÍNEZ: Jonathan Edwards is an arts and government reporter for The Washington Post. Jonathan, thanks. EDWARDS: Thank you. Copyright &copy; 2026 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. 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