Ric Grenell explains why artists may be refusing to perform at the Trump-Kennedy Center

The elites in the performing arts world are throwing a full-blown meltdown over President Trump's name joining JFK's on the Kennedy Center, and it's exposing just how intolerant the left truly is when they don't get their way.

Red State recently reported, that the board of trustees, stacked with Trump's appointees, voted unanimously to rename the iconic venue The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, or the Trump-Kennedy Center for short. This honors Trump's massive efforts throughout 2025 to rescue and revitalize the place, pouring in upgrades and modernization under the guidance of his handpicked interim president, Ric Grenell.

New signs went up almost overnight, and that's when the hissy fits began, not from ticket buyers, but from the performers themselves.

Nick Arama, another reporter from Red State, nailed the coverage on jazz musician Chuck Redd, who'd been hosting the center's Christmas Eve "Jazz Jams" since 2006. He bailed at the last minute after spotting the name change. "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 told The Associated Press.

Grenell wasn't having it, hitting back hard and threatening a $1 million lawsuit against Redd for breaching his contract.

"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.

“Regrettably, your action surrenders to the sad bullying tactics employed by certain elements on the left, who have sought to intimidate artists into boycotting performances at our national cultural center," he added.

And Redd's not alone in prioritizing politics over paying fans. The New York jazz outfit The Cookers ditched their New Year's Eve shows, bloviating that "Jazz was born from struggle and from a relentless insistence on freedom: freedom of thought, of expression, and of the full human voice."

Are you kidding?  Adding Trump's name to the building somehow muzzles "human voices"? 

Cut me a huss [don't Google it; Grok it], Trump didn't silence anyone; these guys are the ones ditching their audiences.

Country/folk singer Kristy Lee scrapped her January slot to preserve what she called her integrity, and the Doug Varone and Dancers company axed their April dates, whining they couldn't "step inside this once great institution." Of course it's their call, but don't pretend it's anything but a TDS-fueled tantrum.

Sure, artists cancel for all sorts of reasons: sickness, emergencies, or straight-up political freak-outs. But Grenell dropped a bombshell, claiming he's heard directly from booked acts that CNN and The Washington Post are actively emailing them, pushing boycotts of the Trump-Kennedy Center.

If that's accurate, and there's zero reason to doubt Grenell on this, it's outright interference, the media acting as left-wing activists trying to sabotage a national institution. Classic. It lays bare the left's entitlement: they think they own places like this, and if Trump touches it, they'll burn it down so nobody else can enjoy it. The real victims? The fans and patrons who lose out because orange man bad.

This is peak liberal hypocrisy on display, and it's glorious to watch it backfire.

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Kennedy Center Boss Ric Grenell Just Torched Sheldon Whitehouse’s Smear Campaign—And It’s Glorious

The Left is melting down faster than a snowflake in July because President Trump finally put adults in charge of the Kennedy Center, and they're actually fixing the money-pit disaster the Biden clowns left behind.

Enter Acting President Ric Grenell, Trump's bulldog who's been cleaning house at the taxpayer-funded arts palace. He went on Fox News's "Sunday Morning Futures" with Maria Bartiromo and absolutely eviscerated Democrat Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), who’s been screeching that the place is "being looted to the tune of millions of dollars in foregone revenue, cancelled programming, unpaid use of its facilities, and wasteful spending on luxury restaurants and hotels—an unprecedented pattern of self-dealing, favoritism, and waste."

Whitehouse even penned a hysterical letter claiming: "Contracts, invoices, and facility use agreements reveal that you operate the Center for the enrichment of your friends and acquaintances, to dole out political favors, and as a playground for the President of the United States and his allies."

Grenell's response was to invite Whitehouse to a meeting.

The guy who’s on the board hasn’t shown up to a single one.

Grenell dropped the hammer to Bartiromo: "who’s on the Kennedy Center board, should show up for some of these meetings. He hasn't been to a single meeting. If he had gone to the meetings, he would understand that President Trump has saved the Kennedy Center."

And about that "free" FIFA deal Whitehouse is losing his mind over? Grenell fired back in writing that the senator's rant "did not undergo basic fact-checking" and was "filled with partisan attacks and false accusations." He told the Democrat his staff "relied on anonymous sources, inaccurate gossip, and allegations from partisan reporters who never had access to the data or facts I’m happy to provide below."

Reality check: "FIFA has given them several million dollars, in addition to paying all of the expenses for this event in lieu of a rental fee," Grenell explained. "Your focus on simple rental fees is no way to run an institution as diverse as the Kennedy Center. A simple rental fee would not have been enough to cover the magnitude of the event."

So, FIFA is dumping multimillions into the Kennedy Center, way more than some chump rental fee, while covering every dime of expenses. But sure, Sheldon, keep whining about “free” stuff while Democrats torch billions on green grift nobody asked for.

Grenell laid out the real mess he walked into: "The books were a mess when I walked in. We were paying staff with debt reserves. We didn’t have money in the bank. It was chaos when it came to programming. What President Trump said was 'let’s clean it up.'"

Kennedy Center VP Roma Daravi piled on to The Daily Wire: FIFA is handing over "multimillions of dollars, much more than what a rental’s revenue would have been, plus they are covering all expenses." And yeah, she called out the senator and his media lapdogs for "purposely shared misleading information with the New York Times and Washington Post, and none of them cared if any of it was true."

"The press and the Senator should be ashamed of the lies they print and reprint, we want a cultural center for all Americans but they push lies to sow division amongst Americans for their selfish moment in a headline," Daravi blasted.

Crickets when asked for comment, Whitehouse was mum. 

Grenell bragged, rightfully, that they slashed a bloated 94-person development staff down to 16, saving $4 million in that department alone. The old boss was pocketing $1.2 million a year while the building literally crumbled. This was now the first balanced budget in decades. Food costs were slashed, and yes, they axed the woke garbage that was tanking attendance.

"Of course they cry when we try to bring it to the middle," Grenell told Bartiromo. "They’re losing their woke programming."

The Kennedy Center raised $58 million in 35 days, then blew past $117 million total, more than double what the Democrat Party has scraped together all year. "People are giving more to the Kennedy Center than the Democrat Party," Grenell crowed. "Say it louder for the reporters in the back."

Bottom line: Trump's team is running the Kennedy Center like a business instead of a leftist slush fund, and the usual suspects are throwing a tantrum because their gravy train got derailed.Cry harder, Sheldon. The adults are in charge now, and transparency is the new normal. As Grenell put it: Whitehouse and his crew "can see exactly what we're doing."

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Venezuela flies out nearly 200 deportees to their country

Nearly 200 illegal aliens from Venezuela were flown back to their country in two planes sent here to do the job, in accordance with President Trump's mass deportation promise.

This deportation of 190 illegal aliens may be a sign of tensions being relaxed between the US and Venezuela and it's certainly a win for Trump's administration as they begin to fulfill the promise they made to have countries take back their citizens who were in the U.S. illegally.

The Conviasa airline flights arrived in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas from Fort Bliss, a U.S. Army base in El Paso, Texas.

"Two planes of illegal immigrants left El Paso today headed to Venezuela - paid for by the Venezuelans," Trump envoy Ric Grennell, who oversaw the deportations, wrote on X.

Under the PINO Joe Biden's administration, deportation flights from the U.S. to Venezuela were halted for years, except for a brief time in October 2023.

In 2021, many Venezuelans started showing up at the U.S. southern border, and they've been among the top groups trying to enter the country without permission. Venezuela didn’t want to take them back, which caused a big problem.

However, after Ric Grenell visited Caracas a few weeks ago, Venezuela agreed to accept their returning citizens. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro commented, "This is the world we want, a world of peace, understanding, dialogue, and cooperation."

On Monday, Venezuela confirmed flights for deportees back home but criticized the U.S. for spreading what they called "ill-intentioned" and "false" stories about Venezuelan migrants, particularly about members of the Tren de Aragua gang. They emphasized that most Venezuelan migrants are honest, hardworking people.

These deportations happened shortly after some undocumented immigrants were sent to Guantanamo Detention Center in Cuba, where they are kept separate from other detainees, including those involved in the 9/11 attacks.

"Adiós para siempre."

A judge in New Mexico issued a temporary block on the Trump administration's plan to send three Venezuelan men to Guantánamo Bay. Their lawyers argued that these men were targeted because they fit the profile of those the administration wanted to detain there, accusing them wrongly of gang connections.

The deportations also followed agreements by Secretary of State Marco Rubio with El Salvador and Guatemala, where these countries agreed to accept their citizens and other deportees from the U.S.

After Grennell's visit, Trump announced that Venezuela had agreed to take back all their undocumented citizens in the U.S., including alleged gang members, and even cover the cost for their flights back. At the same time, six Americans were released from Venezuela.

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LA Mayor walks back paying wildfire czar $500K for 90 days for recovery ideas regarding LA wildfires

Imagine getting paid $5,556 per day for 90 days to consult on how to recover from the wildfires that plagued Los Angeles since last month. Half a million dollars for 90 days of work.

The Los Angeles Times reported that Steve Soboroff, would be paid the money over the course of three months working as LA's "chief recovery officer." After all, Steve is a real estate developer and civic official and does not in any way stand to monetarily benefit over rebuilding efforts of the city, beyond the paychecks he would have received advising on the plans. And if you believe that, you might also believe that one day the skies will be darkened with the flight of chickens heading north.

Soboroff's money was supposed to come from charity organizations [perhaps like USAID], but Democrat LA Mayor Karen Bass who initially chose him for the job on January 17, walked it all back by Saturday night, saying that Soboroff would now do the work for free. Now that gives credence to the notion that he still has something to gain--remember, he's a real estate developer. I don't know, of course, if it's true, but would you honestly be surprised if he stood to gain something 'under the proverbial table'?

"Steve is always there for LA. I spoke to him today and asked him to modify his agreement and work for free. He said yes," Bass said, according to the Times. "We agree that we don’t need anything distracting from the recovery work we’re doing."

Another real estate executive, Randy Johnson, was supposed to be paid $250,000 from charity groups but even he is willing to do the work for free, Bass said.

Real estate executive, eh?

Regarding Johnson, Bass said she was "grateful for his generosity and expertise," but the mayor's office declined to name the charity organizations or clarify how the funding was raised, according to the Times.

Los Angeles City Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez, a member of the five-person committee tasked with recovery, told the LA Times it was "infuriating" that philanthropic groups would pay two people $750,000, calling the amount "obscene."

"He’s getting paid $500,000 for 3 months of work?" President Donald Trump's envoy for special missions, Ric Grenell, posted on X about Soboroff. "And they call this a charity. Gross. Offensive."

Grenell, who was seated next to Trump during a round table discussion in the Pacific Palisades last month, added: "I’m getting paid $0 – as are many people. It’s a good thing there will be strings on the Federal money for California."

Steve Danton, who resides in a temporary apartment in Marina del Rey after his home was destroyed in the Palisades Fire, said Soboroff’s compensation is a "money grab," adding that the city is experiencing a "crisis of leadership."

Larry Vein, a Pacific Palisades resident whose home suffered smoke damage, condemned Soboroff's reported $500,000 compensation, saying no one should handle recovery efforts for "financial gain."

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