Maria Shriver is blasting President Donald Trump over his escalating battle to put his name on the Kennedy Center, accusing him of putting his own recognition ahead of the future of the institution named in memory of her uncle, President John F. Kennedy.
“This statement from Trump blows my mind,” Shriver wrote after Trump announced that the Kennedy Center’s main building would close immediately but said planned renovation and reconstruction work would not begin while the legal battle over adding his name to the building remains unresolved.
“That a sitting president would not let any renovations to a public building go on unless he gets to first put his name in the said building,” Shriver continued.
“What a sad state of affairs. What a tragedy. Actually, how small minded, how narcissistic.”
Then came her sharpest line.
“Actually great men, devoted to public service and the public good do not act like this.”
The extraordinary family rebuke arrived amid another dramatic turn in the increasingly bitter fight over the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper once again blocked an attempt by the Kennedy Center’s Trump-aligned board to place Trump’s name on the building.
The board had considered an inscription honoring Trump for the renovation and restoration of the center, along with a proposal to rename the surrounding campus “President Donald J. Trump Plaza.”
Cooper rejected the effort.
“Simply put, Defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’s blessing,” the judge wrote.
The Kennedy Center was established by Congress as a living memorial to President Kennedy following his 1963 assassination.
Hours after Cooper’s ruling, the Kennedy Center board — which Trump chairs and which is largely composed of his allies — voted to immediately close the main building for what it described as necessary safety repairs and a major renovation.
Trump then made the dispute over his name explicit.
In a Truth Social post, he said the renovation and reconstruction could not begin until the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rules on the board’s effort to recognize him at the center.
He went further.
If the appeals court rules against the administration and that decision is not subsequently overturned by the Supreme Court, Trump said the reconstruction and renovation “will not take place.”
That declaration infuriated Shriver.
For her, the controversy is not simply about another Washington building.
The Kennedy Center carries the name and memory of her uncle, whose assassination in Dallas in 1963 transformed the unfinished national cultural center into a memorial bearing his name.
Shriver accused Trump of being consumed with attaching his own name to that legacy.
“It seems that this man will not rest until his name is permanently connected to the name of a great president, whose memory this building was dedicated to,” she wrote.
She also contrasted the president’s attention to the Kennedy Center dispute with the economic pressures facing Americans and the ongoing war in Iran.
“Imagine spending your time and your days focused on this, as everyday Americans struggle with healthcare, gas prices, rent, and food,” Shriver wrote.
“Imagine spending your days focused on this, while a war rages under your leadership.”
The Kennedy Center’s leadership argues that the building needs substantial repairs and has warned about serious financial problems at the institution.
Congress has allocated roughly $257 million toward the renovation project, according to Reuters.
The board has also argued that recognizing Trump is important to maintaining his involvement in the institution’s financial rescue and renovation.
But the courts have repeatedly stood in the way of attempts to place his name on the memorial.
Cooper previously ordered Trump’s name removed from the Kennedy Center facade in May. Workers subsequently removed it in June.
The latest proposal attempted a different approach — adding language honoring Trump for his role in renovating or restoring the center rather than formally changing the institution’s statutory name.
Cooper wasn’t persuaded.
His latest ruling concluded that the board still could not install a memorial honoring Trump without congressional authorization.
Now the dispute has moved beyond the courtroom.
The main building has been closed. Fencing has gone up around the property. The Justice Department is appealing Cooper’s ruling.
And Trump has publicly linked whether the massive renovation proceeds to the outcome of the legal fight over recognizing him at the Kennedy Center.
For members of the Kennedy family, that has made an already bitter dispute intensely personal.
Shriver ended her response with a simple judgment about how she believes public service should work:
“Great men, devoted to public service and the public good do not act like this.”
About the Author
Stop Donald Trump from destroying the Great John F. Kennedy Center in Washington D.C.
Friends we need to look at everything Trump has put his rapist’s name on and plan to destroy all of them. American don’t need a reminder to know Donald J. Kennedy is a rapist, a Convicted Criminal and a two time Impeached President and Donald Trump tried to overthrow the USA and take over the US Capital, Because Trump lost to President JOE Bidem in 2020 by over 7,000 Votes.
Trump was going to appoint himself king if the MAGA gang had preformed the duty to overthrow the USA, Lead by a rapist Donald J. Trump