Insider Claims Trump’s Kennedy Center Makeover Is a Mess
Whistleblowers are sounding the alarm over Donald Trump’s overhaul of the Kennedy Center, saying the president’s rushed renovations have unraveled behind the scenes.
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Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse has revealed that he received a whistleblower disclosure from the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit whistleblower protection group, alleging that “the Center rushed a series of renovations driven by the president’s aesthetic whims and his desire to star in a series of televised events in December.”
After hijacking the arts and culture venue last year, Trump held FIFA’s World Cup draw at the center last December, where he was awarded the newly-invented “FIFA Peace Prize,” and hosted the Kennedy Center Honors that same month.
One of the allegations in the whistleblower disclosure centers on the Kennedy Center’s East Plaza Reflecting Pool, which allegedly received only a “cosmetic revamp” and is already showing signs of rust and peeling.
Whitehouse argued in a to the center’s executive director, Matt Floca, that this indicates that the “old paint was never properly stripped before it was resurfaced.”
According to another whistleblower claim, the Kennedy Center tore out a brand-new beige bathroom floor after the White House objected to the color the day after Trump toured the center in March 2025.
Whitehouse also detailed a whistleblower claim that Trump’s “preferred contractor cut corners when repainting the Center’s columns, sticking taxpayers with the repair bill,” and that the Kennedy Center “rewrote its own contracting rules in a post hoc effort to justify the no-bid contracts awarded to facilitate the rushed renovations.”
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“The Center’s subservience to the president’s desires and its corner-cutting contracting practices have resulted in steel columns that are rusting through fresh paint, a reflecting pool that may have to be torn out and rebuilt, and a brand-new bathroom floor torn out over an offending tile color,” Whitehouse wrote in his letter. “This is waste, and it treats a national memorial to President Kennedy as if it were a private renovation project.”
Whitehouse included an containing internal Kennedy Center documents, emails, and photos, and asked Floca to answer a series of questions by July 23.
The White House and the Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s requests for comment.
Trump is trying to rename the center after himself and close it for two years for what he called a “complete rebuilding,” though renderings he released show little visible change to the building.
However, he has suffered a series of humiliating court rulings ordering him to remove his name from the building and to temporarily block his plan to shut down the center for his $257 million renovation project.
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