Trump’s Kennedy Center Name Change Cost Venue Nearly $100 Million in Lost Revenue: Report

President Donald Trump’s name hollowed out the Kennedy Center’s budget by roughly $100 million, according to a new report.

The Washington Post reported Tuesday on confidential documents the paper obtained that outlined how “ticket sales and fundraising collapsed” following Trump appending his name to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts even as center officials publicly bragged about turning finances around.

After Trump’s coup of the center’s board in 2025, a $220 million budget had been planned for the Washington D.C. institution, but by late May, five months after the Trump-appointed board had voted to put his name on the venue, officials projected it would only bring in approximately $124 million, The Post reported. Even after cutting expenses through layoffs and program cuts, the center forecasted it was going to be $23 million short of the cash needed to cover its expenses.

Ticket sales had already been reported to have dropped after Trump’s takeover, but following the name change vote, patrons’ purchases and donations “plunged,” The Post said the documents revealed. The center altered projections of revenue from ticket sales, adjusting it downward 70%, and lowered predictions for donations by 25%. The declines belied what officials were saying publicly, with one Justice Department lawyer asserting in a lawsuit that Trump’s name was saving the Kennedy Center from financial collapse. Weeks before that statement, the center’s internal projections showed ticket sales and fundraising had “plummeted” following the name change, according to The Post.

In late May, a court ordered the Kennedy Center to remove Trump’s name, ruling that only Congress has authority to change the venue’s name, and halted plans for a closure for renovations, decisions that were upheld on appeal. That same month a judge trashed a lawsuit brought by the center against drummer Chuck Redd after he canceled an annual Christmas show with the case costing the venue another $250,000.