How Trump turned on the Kennedy Center and brought it to its knees

When President Donald Trump’s name was ordered removed from the Kennedy Center this spring, it seemed that an opening to move on from his reign over the performing arts center might have emerged. “I have instructed the Department of Commerce to make all necessary arrangements with Congress to allow a full and complete transfer of this Institution, giving them the responsibility for its Operation, Maintenance, and Management,” the president wrote in a late-May Truth Social post, seemingly relinquishing the control he’d seized a year prior. Speculation even bubbled up among some of the more than a dozen “ex-officio,” board members — who don’t get a vote but are not allied with Trump — over whether the former board chairman, billionaire philanthropist David Rubenstein, could be brought back to help restore the center’s fundraising and programming, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN. (CNN has asked Rubenstein for comment.)