Republicans in Congress Decline To Change Kennedy Center’s Name Despite Administration’s Insistence

Republicans in Congress are declining to rename the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in order to add President Trump’s name before President Kennedy’s. The annual spending bill which deals with the center’s budget refers only to the 35th commander-in-chief. The House Appropriations Committee on Monday released the text of three of its 12 annual spending bills which must be passed by Congress and signed by the president in order to avoid a shutdown. One of those bills — the Interior subcommittee appropriations legislation — funds the Kennedy center every year. On page 371 of that bill, the institution is referred to only as “the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.”This is not the first time that the Republican majority in Congress has decided to eschew Mr. Trump’s preferred name changes for certain agencies or departments. The annual military authorization bill, passed by Congress and signed by the president last month, refers to the “Department of Defense” — not the “Department of War,” as Mr. Trump prefers to call it. The Trump administration claimed in December that the Kennedy Center’s board had voted unanimously to rename the center in order to honor Mr. Trump for the “unbelievable work President Trump has done over the last year in saving the building,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at the time. Another renaming effort also fell by the wayside as part of the bipartisan spending agreement unveiled on Monday. Last year, Republicans in Congress introduced an amendment to the Interior appropriations bill which would have renamed the Kennedy Center’s opera house — the venue that hosts the annual Kennedy Center Honors — for first lady Melania Trump. According to the appropriations legislation unveiled Monday, no such name change will be made for Mrs. Trump. Less than one day after the center’s board of trustees voted to rename the building, a construction crew had added Mr. Trump’s name to the building. It has been more difficult, however, to get the center’s website updated. The URL for the website still refers only to Kennedy — not Mr. Trump. The homepage of the website itself refers to the “Trump Kennedy Center” only once in the top left corner, though all other titles do not mention the sitting president. Under the website’s “history” section for the center, there is no mention of Mr. Trump. Getting the “Trump Kennedy Center” URL has proven difficult because a former writer for “South Park” — a long-running animated comedy show which dedicated its past season to mocking the Trump administration — decided to purchase the domain name before the federal government was able to. That domain — TrumpKennedyCenter.Org — features a number of slights making fun of Mr. Trump. The homepage features an upcoming performance by “The Epstein Dancers” and includes redactions of certain information, much like the Epstein files which have so far been released by the Department of Justice. “We invite you to experience culture as authority, pageantry as truth, and excellence as defined by those in power,” the website’s homepage reads.

Republicans in Congress Decline To Change Kennedy Center’s Name Despite Administration’s Insistence

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