In a very sweet move that is coming as part of an appropriations package, Republicans are attempting to rename the Kennedy Center’s Opera House, one of the largest and most important facilities in the Kennedy Center, the “First Lady Melania Trump Opera House” in honor of the much-beloved First Lady. Predictably, Democrats are freaking out about it.
As background, on Tuesday, July 22, the Republican-led House Appropriations Committee passed an amendment to a bill funding the Interior Department, Environmental Protection Agency, and other similar agencies that makes the name change for the Opera House as part of the appropriations package for the Kennedy Center.
The amendment was approved by the Republicans in the committee by a party-line vote, with the GOP seemingly seeing the renaming of the 2,364-seat theater, the second largest in the Kennedy Center complex, as a major moral win that shows their commitment to Trump and MAGA in a small but important way.
Commenting on the matter, Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID), the chairman of the House Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee, cheered the move as a way of honoring Melania’s involvement in promoting the arts, saying, as ABC News reports, “This is an excellent way to recognize [the first lady’s] support and commitment to promoting the arts.”
Further, the move comes in the context of larger GOP attempts to change around the Kennedy Center and push it away from leftism and into a more centrist stream. Particularly, amidst allegations of fraud regarding past officials, President Trump has tried to root some of the woker performances out, such as an LGBTQ+ singing routine.
Additionally, Republicans have tried to cut the center’s budget somewhat in the name of fiscal sanity. For example, while the recent “Big Beautiful Bill” signed into law by President Trump includes a whopping $257 million for Kennedy Center repairs, restoration, maintenance work, and new security structures, Republicans are now trying to slash the operating budget for the center in the next fiscal year by a whopping 17%, down to $37 million.
In any case, Democrats have freaked out about the name change honoring First Lady Melania Trump. Amongst those was, as ABC News reports, Democrat US Congresswoman from Maine Rep. Chellie Pingree, who declared that the renaming in honor of the First Lady was “snuck in” by the GOP members of the appropriations committee in a “divisive” amendment.
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Commenting on the matter, she said during a hearing, “The Republicans have now given the president six times the normal amount of money to run the Kennedy Center, carte blanche over who will be on the board, and how different parts of the Kennedy Center — perhaps the whole Kennedy Center itself — will be named, and this amendment confirms that.”
Lower-profile Democrats attacked the move as well. For example, one poster on X (formerly Twitter) who identifies in his bio as a “Democrat” attacked the news by saying, “Melania Trump has done absolutely nothing for the arts to deserve the Kennedy Center being renamed after her. This is just going to be changed back once Trump and his groupies are out of office.”
Watch Republicans comment on renaming the Opera House here: