Notes from the Field — September 30, 2026
The Kennedy Center’s lawyers have told a federal court that without President Trump’s name on the building, the institution faces a “death spiral.” The board that makes that argument was installed by the president, after the previous trustees were removed without cause. When a room argues for the name of the man who built it, check what the room’s own books say.
The Washington Post looked. It reviewed confidential board documents and tax filings, and reported on September 30 what they show.
What the documents show
In the nineteen months since Trump took control, the Post reported, the center has:
- Doubled its bank credit line from $10 million to $21 million in September 2025 and borrowed all of it.
- Taken $10 million out of a $10.3 million endowment tied to the Washington National Opera, described internally as an extra payout to cover opera bills. The opera is suing for more than $17 million it says belongs to it.
- Written off $48 million in pledges that it no longer expects to collect, according to its latest tax filing.
- Seen donations fall about 40 percent in the first quarter of 2026 compared with the last four months of 2025, according to an internal June report.
The Justice Department’s own filing with an appeals court, on Monday, September 28, said the center “was only able to pay its bills thanks to 17 million dollars raised by President Trump” and that the money “is fast being expended.” The Post links that figure to the Trump Kennedy Center Foundation, a rebranded charity that raised $17.5 million from donors it has not named.
Two accounts
Trump has said the center was “losing hundreds of millions of dollars” when he took over. Experts told the Post that the previous leadership left it in better shape than in most years before the pandemic. In the fiscal year that ended in September 2025, the Post reported, ticket revenue fell 15 percent and donations nearly a quarter.
A Kennedy Center spokesperson told the Post the problems began under the previous leadership, that Trump’s name has attracted new donors and that the budget for fiscal 2027 is balanced. The center declined to answer the Post’s other questions. An earlier Post report said ticket sales and fundraising collapsed after the name was first added in December, with internal projections falling nearly $100 million short of revenue targets, and that artists canceled performances after the change.
Those two accounts do not reconcile in the reporting. What the dispatch can say is narrower. The court filings argue the center cannot survive without the name. The board’s own documents, as the Post describes them, show the finances weakening across the period of the board’s control, both before and after the name went up. A federal judge has ordered the name off the building.
What the room is ruling on
The Self-Dealing Room’s arrow asks whether a room ruling on its own standing is also the beneficiary. A board installed by the man whose name is at issue, arguing that the institution’s survival depends on that name, is both the ruler and the party the ruling serves. Power does not require conspiracy. It only requires that the people in the room share a common interest in the outcome.
The usual check on a board’s financial claims is its own books and the trustees who would read them. Here the trustees are the president’s appointees, and the figures reached the public through a newspaper. The Post’s reporting came from outside the room.
As of September 30, the case is on appeal and the board has not publicly answered the Post’s questions about the endowment draw. The name is off the building; the argument is still being made in court.
Essay 3 — The People in the Room (The Self-Dealing Room)
Copyright 2026 — Steve Sagnotti
Sources: The Washington Post reporting of September 30, 2026, via Reuters/Raw Story, “Kennedy Center ‘in free fall’ as Trump allies max out credit and spend opera funds,” and via The Anchorage Daily News, “The Kennedy Center was solvent when Trump took over, then its finances collapsed,” October 2, 2026; The New Republic, “Kennedy Center in Total Financial ‘Free Fall’ Thanks to Trump”; CNN analysis by Aaron Blake; Deadline reporting on the Kennedy Center’s August court filing; Daily Beast on the Washington National Opera suit.
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