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Trump says he will fire multiple Kennedy Center board members and name himself chair

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Kierra Frazier
News Editor
Kierra Frazier is a news editor for CBS News & Stations.
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Kierra Frazier

/ CBS News

President Trump announced plans Friday to fire board members for the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and install himself as its chairman. 

"At my direction, we are going to make the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., GREAT AGAIN," Mr. Trump wrote on .

The president said he would "immediately terminate multiple individuals from the Board of Trustees, including the Chairman, who do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture."

He did not say which board members he plans to terminate. The board has 36 members appointed by the president, each to six-year terms. The board is divided between Republican and Democratic appointees. 

In a statement, the Kennedy Center said it had "received no official communications from the White House regarding changes to our board of trustees," but was "aware that some members of our board have received termination notices from the administration."

The Kennedy Center noted that this is the first time a president has taken such a course of action.

"There is nothing in the Center's statute that would prevent a new administration from replacing board members; however, this would be the first time such action has been taken with the Kennedy Center's board," the statement read.  

On Monday, Mr. Trump he was naming Ric Grenell, who has served as a special envoy and former ambassador, to be interim executive director overseeing daily operations of the Kennedy Center.

David Rubenstein, philanthropist and co-founder of the Carlyle Group, has been the chairman of the Kennedy Center's board of trustees for 14 years and announced that he was stepping down from the board effective . Deborah Rutter, who has served as president of the Kennedy Center since 2014, announced last month that she planned to at the end of 2025.

Mr. Trump has a strained relationship with the Kennedy Center dating back to his first term in office when he announced that he and first lady Melania Trump would not attend the Kennedy Center Honors in 2017 after some of that year's recipients threatened a boycott. 

According to its website, the Kennedy Center hosts over 2,200 performances, events and exhibits a year, with over two million visitors annually. The center was created by Congress in 1958 and serves as a living memorial to John F. Kennedy. Along with the 36 members appointed by the president, trustees also include ex-officio leaders in government designated by Congress. 

Before leaving the White House, former President Joe Biden appointed several new members to the board, including former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

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