Comedy writer thwacks Trump’s memorial to himself
Perhaps you’ve seen it, the website at trumpkennedycenter.org. The Washington Post heralded its coming creation back in December:
“As soon as Trump began gutting the Kennedy Center board earlier this year, I thought, ‘Yep, that name’s going on the building,’” explains Toby Morton, a comedy writer with “South Park” and “Mad TV” credits who buys political domains and turns them into satirical websites as a form of activism. All year, Morton followed news of Trump’s takeover of the institution — how the president purged many of its existing board members, replaced them with loyalists, then announced plans to personally host the Kennedy Center Honors — and in August he snapped up the rights to both trumpkennedycenter.org and trumpkennedycenter.com.
And here we are:
When on December 18, Roma Daravi, spokesperson for the venue, announced, “The Kennedy Center Board of Trustees voted unanimously today to name the institution The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts,” Morton’s bet paid off. The comedy writer “purchases domain names then creates parody websites that lampoon their subjects,” Vanity Fair observes.
And thus this dedication on Morton’s site:
Welcome to TrumpKennedyCenter.org
A national cultural center dedicated to legacy, loyalty, and the careful presentation of history.
Here, tradition is preserved, narratives are curated, and performances are elevated beyond mere art. What is remembered matters. What is omitted matters more.
We invite you to experience culture as authority, pageantry as truth, and excellence as defined by those in power.
Daravi continued, “The unanimous vote recognizes that [Trump] saved the institution from financial ruin and physical destruction.”
I have yet to see any evidence to support that Trumpian smear.
Deborah Rutter, the former Kennedy Center president fired by Trump, calls the statement a “malicious” distortion of the facts displaying a reckless disregard of the truth. She acknowledges financial strains. But Rutter contends that the center simply faces a maintenance backlog like many federal buildings (NPR from May 2025):
In 2021 the Smithsonian, another institution that receives federal funds, estimated its deferred maintenance backlog at more than $1 billion.
A House committee has approved a proposal for an enormous budget increase for the Kennedy Center. It would allocate more than $250 million to the Center, most of which would go towards repairs. That’s a sixfold increase from the roughly $40 million the center has received from Congress each year.
In her statement, Rutter said that in each of her 10 years as president, the Kennedy Center’s budget “served as a blueprint for our operations and programming — standard and responsible practice in arts management.”
Morton’s parody may not be the final word on Trump’s sacrilege:
It’s unclear how long that URL will be useful, however. On Monday, Democratic Representative Joyce Beatty of Ohio filed a lawsuit to force the removal of Trump’s name from the center, saying in her filing that the name change violates the Constitution. “Only Congress has the authority to rename the Kennedy Center. President Trump and his cronies must not be allowed to trample federal law and bypass Congress to feed his ego,” Beatty said in a statement. “This entire process has been a complete disgrace to this cherished institution and the people it serves. These unlawful actions must be blocked before any further damage is done.”
This has got to be a satisfying nod for Morton:
Morton announced Sunday via social media that he’d recieved support in his satirical effort from Kerry Kennedy, a niece of former president John F. Kennedy as well as the daughter of Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy and sister of current Health and Human Services head, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
RFK Jr. was likely too ‘roided up to catch the joke.