The president of the Kennedy Center’s board is once again lashing out at critics of President Donald Trump – this time targeting a veteran jazz musician who abruptly canceled a Christmas Eve performance following the center’s MAGA-style renaming to the “Trump-Kennedy Center.”
Richard Grenell, a Trump ally who has led the board since February, blasted musician Chuck Redd after the drummer and vibraphonist withdrew from his long-running holiday “Jazz Jams” performance at the venue, a tradition he has overseen since 2006, Politico reported Friday.
In a sharply worded letter shared with The Associated Press, Grenell accused Redd of engaging in “classic intolerance” and called the cancellation a “political stunt” that he claimed would cause significant financial harm to the nonprofit arts institution.
“Your decision to withdraw at the last moment — explicitly in response to the Center’s recent renaming, which honors President Trump’s extraordinary efforts to save this national treasure — is classic intolerance and very costly to a non-profit Arts institution,” Grenell wrote in the letter, adding that he intends to seek $1 million in damages over the last-minute withdrawal.
Redd told the AP on the day of his scheduled performance that he canceled the performance after seeing Trump’s name added to the building and website.
“When I saw the name change on the Kennedy Center website and then hours later on the building, I chose to cancel our concert,” Redd said, as reported by Politico.
Redd’s pullout this week is the latest fallout from the Trump administration’s rebrand of the storied institution, a move that is continuing to spark backlash and legal scrutiny. Scholars and historians argue the move violates federal law, which designates the Kennedy Center as a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy and prohibits honoring any other individual, Politico noted Friday.
Kennedy’s niece, lawyer and human rights activist Kerry Kennedy, has vowed to remove Trump’s name once he leaves office, while Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH) filed a lawsuit Monday seeking its immediate removal, claiming the board acted unlawfully.