A brief Q&A with the guy slapping Trump’s name on the Kennedy Center
“Matt, is this the first time that you’ve defaced a public building?“
On Friday, officials directed and workers implemented changes to add President Donald Trump’s name to the front of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts building in Washington, D.C., even though Congress has made no change to the name of the building.
The work took place behind two large blue tarps, as a scattered group of journalists and onlookers gathered around to watch and document the defacing of a public memorial.
The move came one day after the Trump-appointed board of trustees of the Kennedy Center voted to make the change — despite the fact that they have no authority to do so under the law setting forth the institution’s name.
As workers were adding Trump’s name to the building on Friday, Matt Floca, vice president for Facilities and Operations at the Kennedy Center, told this reporter — who was standing outside of the construction cone-delineated area and was wearing a congressional press pass — to stop taking photographs from the one side of the effort.
After walking through the mostly empty building, Law Dork found Floca outside, as workers continued in their task.
“Matt, is this the first time that you’ve defaced a public building?“
“Are you recording me?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m a reporter.”
“If you turn this off, we can have a conversation.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to be recorded right now. I’m doing my job, and you’re out here bothering me. So, just give me a second and we can talk, if you’d like.”
Once the recording was stopped, Floca discussed matters further — and was, to be transparent, perfectly pleasant — but would not speak on the record, even as workers continued to act.
The whole effort is contrary to law.
After then-president John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, Congress quickly passed and then-president Lyndon Johnson signed a law changing the name of the “National Cultural Center” to the “John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.”
The Kennedy Center, the law stated, would be “the sole national memorial to the late John Fitzgerald Kennedy within the city of Washington and its environs.”
As Law Dork made clear to Floca, the question for this reporter was that law.
Ultimately, Law Dork never got an answer to the question of whether the law mattered on Friday.
About an hour after this reporter left the front of the Kennedy Center, however, the tarps were taken down, and, as Phil Lewis captured, the underwhelming, lawless project was completed and on full display.
For now.
Great job. I’ve been covering it as you know for 47 years. I will no longer cover it. Nor will I set foot in it. Our opera critic of 31 years has said she will no longer attend WNO performances there. This infantile move will cost them.
Trump doesn’t even realize this is him telling the world he is a needy, pathetic little child.