Trump vs. DC

0:00Today, I'm Sean Rameswaram and I live in Washington, D.C. So I care that congressional Republicans block D.C. from spending a billion dollars of its own money. I care that the same Republicans are trying to get rid of all of D.C.'s traffic cameras and no turn on red signs. And I care that for some reason the federal government is trying to remove a bike lane that serves tens of thousands of D.C. residents and tourists. And I care about the Kennedy Center. but I don't expect you to necessarily care about DC, right? Because it's just like some city most of you don't live in and you didn't sign up to live in a place that doesn't have its own congressional representation.

0:33That's what I did. But it's your city too. It's the nation's capital. It's one of the top tourist destinations in the country. And a lot of intention went into designing it and building it and making it accommodating to not only its residents, but people around the country and the world. And now Donald Trump wants to change it like he wants to change so many things. quickly, brazenly, secretly, namely. And we're going to get into it on Today Explained. Once upon a mundane morning, Barb's day got busy without warning. A realtor in need of an open house sign. No, 50 of them. And designed before nine.

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1:52Do that, do that, do that with Acrobat. Learn more at adobe.com slash do that with Acrobat. Washington, D.C. has become a dirty, crime-ridden death trap. Jonathan L. Fisher is a senior editor at The Atlantic where he's been writing about the Kennedy Center. We're going to start with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. That's what it's still called on Wikipedia. Kennedy Center is the national arts center in Washington that sits on the banks of the Potomac. It opened in the early 70s, but it's an idea from the Eisenhower era to have a national arts center to sort of fulfill the democratic role of culture.

2:32The idea was born that in Washington there should be a center of culture. To provide a setting for the best performers in the world, to bring together Washingtonians of all political stripes. It would be sort of a artistic mecca. Indeed, that would be open to visitors from every land. It had this lofty mission as well as, you know, being a place to go see a show. And for decades, presidents from the left and the right have left it alone, including our current president, at least in his first term. It almost seems like he, when he won re-election, he sat down and he said, like, what are all the things I should have done the first time that I didn't do that I can do now?

3:16Like, let me rename the United States Institute of Peace and let me put my name on the Kennedy Center and really make it mine. Yeah. How did he start doing this? What were his first implementations over at the Kennedy Center? Yeah, I mean, I think the thing to know is that it wasn't just a brute force takeover of the Kennedy Center.

3:39Because the president has this role where he appoints members of the Kennedy Center Board, they concluded that he could fire members of the Kennedy Center Board. So what he ended up announcing in February was that he was giving notice to essentially members of the Kennedy Center Board who had been appointed by other presidents. What that mostly meant was he was firing board members who had been appointed by Joe Biden. And replacing them with lackeys. You could say that. You could say members of his administration, people connected to the administration, people who could be trusted to vote the way that he wanted them to vote.

4:10And sure enough, several days after he makes this announcement, that's what they come and do. They appoint Trump the chairman of the board. Hey! The board is a very distinguished board, most distinguished people in the country. So he is now the chair of the Kennedy Center, the first president to have that role. And then number two, they get rid of Deborah Rutter, who is the chief of the Kennedy Center, and replace her with Rick Grinnell, who is a Trump loyalist, the former ambassador to Germany, who had reportedly been hoping to be Secretary of State in the second administration. Instead, they have him, in addition to some other roles, be in charge of the Kennedy Center.

4:45First of all, how great is it to have a president who actually cares about the art center?

4:54The first thing that happens is actually something that happens to them, not that they do. Artists walk. So I think a lot of artists are immediately offended by this takeover, particularly ones with a connection to Deborah Rutter. Ben Folds, the pianist and singer-songwriter, quits his job as an artistic advisor. Renee Fleming, the famous opera singer, also an advisor. She quits. Well-known performers who have dates at the center, like Issa Rae, they pull dates. in her case citing the Trump takeover. And then maybe the most notable early one was Hamilton. The price of my love's not a price that you're willing to pay.

5:40Hamilton pulls out from a 2026 run at the center. Alexander Hamilton himself pulls out. Yes, Hamilton himself revives himself from the dead and says, I will not go to the Kennedy Center. Hey, I have not been shy. I am just a guy in the public eye trying to do my best for our republic. Like, I don't want to fight, but I won't apologize for doing what's right. It becomes pretty clear quickly that there will be revenue problems. It's clear that subscription sales are low. Ticket sales are way down. And then if you ask people who work at the center, they say it's an audience boycott that audiences are offended by Trump's role in this typically nonpartisan arts center and they just want nothing to do with it.

6:19So they're just not buying tickets. With all these events being canceled, are Trump and Grinnell finding new events to take their place? Grinnell and his staff are booking some, you know, some slightly unusual bookings. You know, now the Kennedy Center is always a rental venue. Its theaters are always available for a performer who just who wants to book it. But the sort of character of the Kennedy Center programming, as well as these rentals, it does appear to be changing. You know, there's a handful of like explicitly Christian events that occur. That feels pretty unusual. You know, CPAC, there's a number of events booked by foreign governments or involving foreign governments, which is also unusual.

6:59You know, the week that MBS from Saudi Arabia visits the White House, they have a Saudi investment conference at the Kennedy Center. And it's great to be here today at the U.S. Saudi Investment Forum. Great group of people. The biggest, you got the biggest in the room. You know, I think most significantly, FIFA hosts the World Cup draw at the Kennedy Center. It was originally set to be in Vegas, and Trump reportedly insisted on having it at the Kennedy Center. And that's where he gets the FIFA Peace Prize. Indeed. Well, thank you very much. This is truly one of the great honors of my life. Before the war, he started.

7:36Yeah. So yeah, these are all different. And then you also have a Kennedy Center honors that he himself has had a role in picking the honorees for. Which is different than what usually happens? Yes. I mean, yes. There has never been a time where the president of the United States has picked who is appearing at the Kennedy Center Honors. That's true. Who does he pick? He picks Sylvester Stallone. Yo, Adrian! I did it! Who is a friend of his, also, you know, well-known as someone whose views are generally on the right. He picks George Strait. All my exes live in Texas You know, the well-known country singer, you know, whose politics are more circumspect, but you can sort of see the connection.

8:22Kiss, who are, I guess, like the president, a very loud product of the 1970s. I want a rock and roll on fire He also picks Michael Crawford, the Broadway singer and performer who originated the role of the Phantom of the Opera in the 1980s. My music. Trump loves The Phantom of the Opera and anything by Andrew Lloyd Webber. And then finally, Gloria Gaynor, the I will survive singer, which, you know, you might say is an unusual choice. I will survive has become this LGBTQ anthem. You know, apparently she is. She's also a Republican donor these days. I don't know the connection. And it also just could be that, you know, she's again, she's a very famous person from Trump's heyday.

9:10So maybe that's enough. Okay, now, it's around this time, I believe, where we start to see real issues with some of the institutions that are permanent fixtures at the Kennedy Center. Is that right? Yeah, that's right. The first one is the Washington National Opera.

9:34In the fall, the artistic director of the opera sort of muses in an interview with The Guardian that they might have to leave. You know, she's talking about the new requirements at the center, that essentially every piece of programming that's put on be paid for by ticket sales or corporate underwriting. and this is at odds with the basic model of opera, which is a fantastically expensive art form that generally has a revenue shortfall. This is true everywhere. It's generally made up for by donors and involves planning several years ahead. By early this year, the opera board votes that they're leaving the Kennedy Center.

10:15The flip side of this is the National Symphony Orchestra, which is sticking around. Both of these institutions have financial relationships with the center, and it's pretty clear that, you know, the orchestra probably couldn't survive without a subsidy from the center. You know, at the same time, it is a little awkward for them to be there. You know, Grinnell insists that they play the national anthem

10:42every night, which, you know, I mean, it is a nice piece of music. It's a little sort of... Classic. You could say it's a bit much, but, you know, there are things like that. The programming stuff is pretty serious. But then when you get to the renovation stuff, it feels existential. Because Donald Trump wants to overhaul this landmark, this national landmark. And to do it, he wants to shut it down, which feels like the blow of all blows. What is wrong with the Kennedy Center? Is there something wrong with it? Does it need renovations? It definitely needs renovations. It has leaks. It has mice.

11:23There's outdated sound and stage equipment. So I think if you talk to people who work there, no one disputes that there are issues. I think what is at dispute is whether you need to shut down the entire thing to do it right. And that's what Trump says. To do it right, you have to shut it down. I think the view of people who work there is that you don't need to do that. You could shut down one. It has three main large performance spaces. You could shut down one, work in that, then shut down another and move on. And, you know, you could do it gradually over several years. But to shut down the whole thing, especially with no notice, because that creates a big problem logistically for the orchestra, you know, as well as Broadway tours and so on.

12:02So to do it without no notice, I think they feel, people who work there feel that there must be some other motivation. Like what? One version of the story is that the revenue is so bad, the incessant negative headlines are so pervasive that they just want to shut all that down and just focus on the building. You know, another theory is that – and I think Trump has probably gotten close to saying this. He wants it to reopen within his term. So maybe if you do a slower renovation, you can't do that. If you shut down the whole thing, you can do it in two years. Of course, then there's the most apocalyptic theory, which is that he's going to knock down the whole thing for some reason.

12:41I'm a little skeptical of that one. I mean, now granted, he's knocked some things down with no notice, but I'm a little skeptical of that one just because— Including his own house! Yes, yes. He posted some renderings. They look pretty similar to the building as it stands today. As far as I know, the funding is funding that was appropriated for a renovation by Congress last year. It's more than$200 million, which is not enough money to build a new Kennedy Center. They probably do plan to just do a renovation. Even already, just by painting the columns, they sort of have already changed the visual effect of the Kennedy Center.

13:19They used to be this bronze color. Now they're white. So I think he has already applied his taste to the Kennedy Center. And therefore, he has made this change to the lovely cityscape of federal Washington, of the monumental core.

13:46You can read Jonathan L. Fisher at TheAtlantic.com. The president wants to do a lot more to the monumental core of the nation's capital. He's coming in like a wrecking ball when Today Explained continues.

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17:58Trump! city's architecture and design since the city was burned down by the British in the War of 1812. Tell us how you justify that argument. That sounds like hyperbole, maybe. But, you know, in fact, he really is turning out to be an amazingly influential force in terms of the design of the city. War of 1812, the British come through and they burn the White House and they burn the Capitol and they had to be rebuilt. Donald Trump has torn down the East Wing of the White House. And he's making major changes, major additions. He's taken out the Rose Garden at the White House. He wants to build a new giant memorial, sort of triumphal arch at Arlington Cemetery.

18:39He's talking about a garden of national heroes that would really change the kind of sylvan landscape along the Potomac River. It goes on and on. And more important, even than those changes, is the fact that he wants to change how Washington manages change. He really wants to kind to force this through by personal fiat rather than go through a longstanding process of design review, which has been absolutely essential to keeping Washington the city we know today. And I think essential to the argument you're making here is that D.C. isn't New York. It isn't a city that was slowly built over time, that progressed and evolved with the times.

19:22the intention behind Washington, D.C. sets it apart. Yes, you know, it begins as a planned city. Very few American cities begin with a plan. A designer named Pierre L 'Enfant created what was called the L 'Enfant Plan. And that was to take a typical city grid of streets, you know, ones that run north, south, and east, west, the big boxes, that were generally for the neighborhoods, for commerce, for the daily stuff of life, And then lay over them these sweeping avenues that connect important civic nodal points. Maybe there's a statue there. Maybe that's where the Capitol or the White House is. And these create a much sort of grander architecture.

20:00And in some ways, the vistas of these avenues stand in for the ambition of the country, a sense of being far-seeing. And Washington has done an awful lot over the years to preserve that. among the most basic things is we didn't build skyscrapers. We've kept a very low slung skyline. And one of Trump's changes, which is this giant 250 foot tall memorial arch, would actually be one of the very tallest buildings in Washington and would fundamentally change that skyline. You really clearly, I mean, including using visuals, lay out why this arch in particular feels like a violation of so much intentional design.

20:43Could you maybe, for our audience, explain what you mean? Well, there are a number of things. First of all, you know, America has fought a lot of wars, and they have not all necessarily been great wars, but in general, we have a sense that we are—we don't brag about victory, that victory is not something to be celebrated because wars are an unfortunate, necessary thing from time to time. A Victory Arch seems to come out of a different language, a different vocabulary for monuments. There isn't one in Washington. They've made sort of temporary ones for parades. But to create this giant one is to be in a slightly more celebratory mode when it comes to military power.

21:29But the really quite striking thing about the arch is that they're going to place it in a way that will block views to Arlington Cemetery. There's a larger story here, and it's a little complicated, but basically when Washington is redesigned in the beginning of the 20th century, it's done to be a giant symbol of reconciliation and national unity after the Civil War. So you have at the base of the Capitol a monument to Ulysses S. Grant, who's the military architect of victory in the Civil War, and then a long vista of two miles to the Lincoln Memorial where we honor the political architect of the war.

22:08And then there's a bridge over to Arlington Cemetery where the people who gave their lives in war rest. And this arch is going to be placed right in front of that view out to the cemetery. It's going to fundamentally change the sense of it and it's going to change the sort of serenity and dignity of the approach to Arlington Cemetery.

22:31The president must have some appreciation for what you just explained, for the sanctity of this cemetery, for the layout of D.C. Otherwise, he probably wouldn't want to plant this arch right in the middle of the sort of transition from the Lincoln Memorial and the National Mall to the Memorial Bridge to Arlington National Cemetery. Do you think in his vision here, this arch is a part of the whole? I really don't think that he is thinking that deeply about it. In the article I wrote for the Washington Post, I was trying to lay out as best I could what we can say about Donald Trump's aesthetic impulses from what we've seen him do, especially in this second term.

23:15And really, frankly, he's drawn to a couple things. One, he likes big things. He likes things that he's seen in other places. Like, you know, he went to Paris and he saw an arch there. And so he wants one here. And he wants it to be the biggest. This one is going to blow him all away. The one that people know mostly is the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France. And we're going to top it by, I think, a lot. He doesn't like open or quiet or empty things. He's always trying to fill in stuff. So you see him just cover the oval office walls with this kind of anachronistic ornamentation. It makes no sense in terms of the design of the building or the history of the building.

23:54But he fills stuff in. I don't think he's actually aware of the symbolism of Washington. And I don't think he's much in sympathy with the fundamental sense of humility, serenity, and dignity that was part of the aesthetics of the original architects of Washington. and going all the way back, coming out of the Enlightenment, coming out of the 18th century. I don't think he gets it. I think he's attracted to the glitter. Is it possible that much of the American public is too? I mean, they voted this president into office twice. His hotels in New York are tourist attraction. People, I guess, around the world go to his golf courses.