President Trump was made chairman of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, he announced on Wednesday, cementing his grip on an institution that he recently purged of Biden appointees.
The center’s longtime president, Deborah F. Rutter, was then fired from her position, the center said. Richard Grenell, a Trump loyalist who was ambassador to Germany during the first Trump administration, was appointed the center’s interim president.
Mr. Trump posted on social media: “It is a Great Honor to be Chairman of The Kennedy Center, especially with this amazing Board of Trustees. We will make The Kennedy Center a very special and exciting place!”
Mr. Grenell visited the center on Wednesday, according to an official at the center.
The center announced on Wednesday a new slate of board members — all appointed by Mr. Trump — and said in a statement that the new board elected Mr. Trump chairman and “terminated” Ms. Rutter’s contract.
Mr. Trump’s actions prompted an outcry in the cultural world.
The superstar soprano Renée Fleming said on Wednesday that she would step down as an artistic adviser to the center. She praised the center’s departing leaders and said that “out of respect, I think it right to depart as well.”
“I’ve treasured the bipartisan support for this institution as a beacon of America at our best,” Ms. Fleming said in a statement. “I hope the Kennedy Center continues to flourish and serve the passionate and diverse audience in our nation’s capital and across the country.”
She was not the only high-profile departure. Shonda Rhimes, who had been treasurer of the Kennedy Center, resigned from the board, a spokeswoman for Ms. Rhimes said.
And the singer and songwriter Ben Folds said he would also resign his post as an adviser to the National Symphony Orchestra, which is overseen by the Kennedy Center.
“Given developments at the Kennedy Center, effective today I am resigning as artistic adviser to the N.S.O.,” Mr. Folds wrote on Instagram. “Mostly, and above all, I will miss the musicians of our nation’s symphony orchestra — just the best!”
Ms. Rutter said in a statement about her departure that it had been the honor of her career to lead the institution, which, in addition to a performing arts center, is a memorial to former President John F. Kennedy. She did not describe being fired.
“The goal of the Kennedy Center has been to live up to our namesake, serving as a beacon for the world and ensuring our work reflects America,” she said. “I depart my position proud of all we accomplished to meet that ambition. From the art on our stages to the students we have impacted in classrooms across America, everything we have done at the Kennedy Center has been about uplifting the human spirit in service of strengthening the culture of our great nation.”
The Kennedy Center has historically been run by bipartisan boards in the past. On Monday, the Trump administration officially removed 18 board members who had been appointed by former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., and the board chairman, the financier David M. Rubenstein.
The center posted a revised list of board members on its website on Wednesday that showed how much things had changed.
While the board had been roughly split between Biden and Trump appointees until recently, it is now entirely made up of appointees of Mr. Trump. The new board includes a litany of Trump loyalists, including the president’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles; Dan Scavino, a longtime Trump aide; and Usha Vance, the wife of Vice President JD Vance.
Ms. Rutter, the center’s president since 2014, said last month that she planned to step down at the end of the year.
President Trump’s move to purge the board of Biden appointees and install himself as its chairman amounted to some of the most sweeping changes in the Kennedy Center’s 54-year history. But it also raised questions about its legality.
The Kennedy Center said in a statement last week that while such a purge of board members had never happened before, it did not see anything in the law to prevent it. One official there said that the center’s thinking was guided in part by court rulings after Mr. Biden removed a few Trump appointees from a board and a council.
In a bit of symmetry, both Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden removed their predecessor’s press secretaries from boards before their terms were up. Mr. Trump removed Karine Jean-Pierre, who had been Mr. Biden’s press secretary, from the Kennedy Center board. Mr. Biden removed Sean Spicer, Mr. Trump’s former press secretary, from the Naval Academy’s board of visitors.
Mr. Spicer was removed from the Naval Academy board along with Russell Vought, who had been the director of the Office of Management and Budget during Mr. Trump’s first term and was recently reappointed to the post in his second term. The two men sued the Biden administration, arguing that Mr. Biden did not have the power to remove them. A district court in Washington sided with the Biden administration, saying board members had no such protections.
In 2023, a federal appeals court in Washington came to a similar conclusion in a case involving another Trump official, Roger Severino, who was removed by Mr. Biden from a position on the council of the Administrative Conference of the United States.
“A defined term of office, standing alone, does not curtail the President’s removal power during the officeholder’s service,” the court said.
Christopher Mills, a lawyer who represented Mr. Severino and Mr. Spicer, said the 2023 decision established a precedent — that being appointed to a fixed term was not enough to protect a board member from dismissal.
“It’s clear that if a statute just provides a term of years, the courts have said that doesn’t protect against removal,” he said. “Removal of board members like that is consistent with a historical trend we’ve seen with presidents from both parties asserting more control over agencies.”
Other legal experts questioned the legality of the president’s moves, noting that the statute establishing the Kennedy Center states that board members “shall” serve six-year terms. “The statute is meant to create a term of office,” said Noah A. Rosenblum, an associate professor of law at New York University.
He described Mr. Trump’s actions at the Kennedy Center as “totally of a piece with the other assertions of executive power we’ve seen in the past month.”
Legal experts say Mr. Trump’s actions leave the Kennedy Center in uncharted territory.
“Typically, you don’t get the right to appoint yourself,” said Daniel Kurtz, a leading nonprofit lawyer. “That’s not a normal provision.”
Rory Kennedy, an Oscar-nominated filmmaker and the youngest child of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, said in an interview earlier this week that she found President Trump’s actions “deeply troubling.”
“This institution, named in honor of my uncle, stands as a beacon of cultural enrichment and artistic expression,” she said. “Let us honor President Kennedy’s legacy by defending institutions like the Kennedy Center against political interference and by demanding accountability from our executive office.”
Trump has a stormy history with the Kennedy Center Honors, the institution’s most important fund-raiser of the year, which is televised and includes a White House reception ahead of the awards. After several of the artists who were honored in 2017, early in first Trump administration, criticized Mr. Trump and suggested that they would boycott the White House reception, Mr. Trump broke with precedent and stayed away from the Honors galas for his entire term.
