Rep. Joyce Beatty had just beaten President Trump for a second time in court in their battle over the future of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, when the two came face-to-face in a virtual boardroom last week.
Kennedy. The 76-year-old lawmaker is the lone name on a lawsuit aimed at keeping an institution in the heart of Washington, D.C., operating as a living memorial to the late President John F.
In the online meeting with roughly 30 board members watching, the president called Beatty “a destructive person” who has “never built anything” and accused her of hurting people by fighting to keep the performing arts venue open. Beatty’s case has taken myriad twists and turns, most recently with Trump saying the venue might “end up being ripped down.”
Maine Rep. The president has fumed that his efforts to rescue a cash-strapped venue have gone unappreciated.
Chellie Pingree, the top Democrat on the House appropriations subcommittee that oversees the Kennedy Center, said the majority party in Congress—especially those on her subcommittee—should have objected to Trump’s takeover. “I think the Trump administration should certainly have recognition,” Trump told reporters, speaking about his Kennedy Center renovation efforts Wednesday evening. Photos emerged online this week showing Trump on Air Force One looking at a poster that said “Kennedy Center DEMOLISHED,” but a senior administration official said there are no immediate plans to tear it down.
Beatty was prompted to take on the Kennedy Center fight after she said the host muted her when she tried to object during the board’s first vote to rename the center in December. In a recent interview she said that incident made clear the Trump-friendly board was ready to rubber stamp whatever the president wanted.“If they can do this to me,” she recalls thinking, “what’s gonna happen to the institution? Lawyers for the Justice Department said in a court filing that Beatty has been a “troublemaking appointment” on the Kennedy Center board “from the beginning of her tenure!”
