People hold hands at a protest to denounce the Kennedy Center board's vote to close one of the nation's premier performing arts venues, outside the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., US, September 18, 2026. REUTERS/Leah Millis
Dan is a managing editor at Raw Story based in Colorado, producing and editing breaking political news.
Dan previously worked as a news associate at The Associated Press in Philadelphia, and later as local editor, breaking news editor and eventually manager at Patch, overseeing the company’s breaking news and Long Island/Hudson Valley teams.
Dan has covered major breaking stories such as mass shootings and wildfires in California, and overseen teams that covered George Santos and the Gilgo Beach serial killings.
A native of Colorado and the Philadelphia area, Dan graduated with a degree in journalism from Temple University.
Hundreds of protesters linked hands around the Kennedy Center on Friday night, days after its Trump-appointed board voted to close the building and as the president again tied his help saving it to getting credit for the effort.
CNN reported that the Kennedy Center laid off about a dozen employees Friday, cutting further into what the network described as an already skeleton staff.
The rally was organized by Hands Off the Arts, which said it was protesting the president's "defacing of JFK's memorial," the removal and censorship of art, and his threat to demolish the center if he cannot remake it in his image.
CNN's Sunlen Serfaty, reporting from outside the building, described a crowd of many hundreds on a Friday night, heavy with musicians and others from the arts community. She said protesters carried signs telling Trump he is no JFK, and one suggesting Mar-a-Lago be demolished instead.
Serfaty spoke with former employees among the crowd. One said she had not received her final paycheck or back pay after being laid off. Another, who said she was alive when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, went on to work the ticket counter at the center and was let go after 15 years, told the building was closing and changing.
Tarps cover the facade and security guards began wearing hard hats this week, Serfaty reported. The center said it is closed for the next week, describing the shutdown as temporary and tied to a first round of renovations.
Asked Friday about reports he had looked at plans to demolish the building, Trump fixated on how he should be credited.
"I think the Trump administration should be recognized as having saved the Kennedy Center, because nobody else can do it," he said.
The protest follows a chaotic week.
The board voted Tuesday to close the venue, citing hazardous conditions and urgent renovation needs, an hour after U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper again blocked the building from carrying Trump's name. Trump announced on Truth Social that it would shut "immediately," despite a court order barring the closure.
Trump reportedly screamed at Beatty during a board call before the vote, telling her she had "never built anything" in her life after she accused him of driving the center into debt.
