Updated June 8, 2026 at 8:16 AM PDT
After multiple setbacks in his effort to remake the Kennedy Center to his liking, including losses in several lawsuits, President Trump says he is handing operations of the center back to Congress. It is not clear what that means, since Congress does not actually run the cultural center.
The move comes after a judge in Washington, D.C., sided with jazz performer Chuck Redd, who canceled a 2025 holiday concert after Trump's name was added to the building. The judge wrote that the Kennedy Center failed to prove the musician had signed a contract to perform.
Josef Palermo, a former curator of visual arts at the Kennedy Center, wrote about his experience in a piece for The Atlantic titled "What I Saw Inside the Kennedy Center."
He told Morning Edition on Monday he joined at a time when others were quitting or being fired because he wanted to "run towards it as a sort of metaphorical first responder and try to save what I could."
Palermo also said Trump's Truth Social post about handing control back to Congress sounded like an attempt to distance himself from an institution. He adds that he believes the Trump administration has driven the center into bankruptcy. Programs such as the National Symphony Orchestra still do not have approved budgets.
In this interview, he talks about how the Kennedy Center's leadership changed under Trump and how questions now surround the institution's finances and future.
Listen to the interview by clicking play on the blue box above.
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