The Donald Trump administration has enacted sweeping changes to the fabric of how the Kennedy Center is run, perceived, and even named. There have been debates on whether these changes will even last — but artists who have long been performing at the institute have already drawn a line in the sand and declared they will no longer be sharing their talents with the institute.
Chuck Redd has been hosting a Christmas Eve show since 2006 at the Kennedy Center. But in this year’s edition, he cancelled, citing the renaming of the site into the Trump Kennedy Center because the president wanted his efforts in restoring the site commemorated in a more permanent form. The BBC reached out for comments from Redd, but he seemingly found that his action spoke loudly enough and decided to withhold any further comment.
The Trump Kennedy Center president, Richard Grenell, however, had a lot to say about the matter. Grenell accused Redd of “classic intolerance” and said the move was “very costly to a non-profit arts institution.” The Kennedy Center chief channeled Trump usual conduct and immediately took a swipe at Redd’s “low” ticket sales, adding that it was coupled with a lack of any donor support. Grenell added, “This is your official notice that we will seek $1m in damages from you for this political stunt.”
This will be the latest addition to a litany of lawsuits that have been spearheaded by the administration, targeting someone who has criticized or refused to be associated with their current agenda. The most notable example was obviously when Jimmy Kimmel made a joke about Trump being more concerned about the construction of his ballroom than he was about Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
But there have also been other moves to court that have been less covered and easier to forget with all the turmoil that surrounds the current administration. Chief among them being Trump going after the former FBI Director James Comey partly for making a false statement in Congress. Which received even further criticism when some realized after the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files that Trump’s own FBI Director Kash Patel allegedly committed the same crime when he made a claim to the Senate that Epstein had no co-conspirators according to the files he had gone through. Patel has since walked it back after the files became public record.
Redd is a drummer. And he has performed at the center regardless of which administration has been in office — be it Republican or Democrat. It’s not particularly an issue if he was, but Redd has never championed himself as a political activist before even getting to the point of being called an intolerant person of particular political leanings.
Redd simply explained, “When I saw the name change on the Kennedy Center website and then hours later on the building, I chose to cancel our concert.” It was a matter of principle for someone who clearly has a closer relationship to the site than most people. But the impetus of proof now lies on the Trump administration to prove in court how that was somehow a contractual breach inspired by hate and intolerance.
