Trump announces Richard Grenell has left the Kennedy Center

President Donald Trump said Friday that Richard Grenell, who he tapped last year to lead the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, has left his role.

“Ric Grenell has done an excellent job in helping to coordinate various elements of the Center during the transition period, and I want to thank him for the outstanding work he has done,” Trump said in a post to his Truth Social platform.

Trump announced that Matt Floca, its vice president of operations, would be named the chief operating officer and executive director of the Kennedy Center.

“Matt has helped us achieve tremendous progress in bringing the center to the highest level of excellence!” he said.

The circumstances of Grenell’s exit were not immediately clear and he declined to comment when approached by The New York Times. But his exit comes after a year of controversy surrounding the performing arts center.

Last month, Trump announced a two-year closure of the Kennedy Center for a “complete rebuilding” after a slew of cancellations stemming from the president’s controversial overhaul of the institution’s leadership and cultural direction.

At the time, he claimed the facility was “tired, broken and dilapidated” and would be transformed into a “new and spectacular entertainment complex,” stating that he had already secured funding for the project.

“A complete reconstruction of The Trump Kennedy Center will begin after the July 4 celebration, with a scheduled grand re-opening in approximately two years,” Trump reiterated in his post Friday. “The Trump Kennedy Center will be, at its completion, the finest facility of its kind anywhere in the world!”

The president on Friday also shared two renderings of the “new” Trump Kennedy Center, as he called it, though the images look largely similar to how the building appears currently.

While Trump and his allies on the Kennedy Center board have rebranded the institution as the “Trump Kennedy Center,” federal law names it the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, meaning any formal change would require an act of Congress.

The news comes after a string of high-profile cancellations, including the debut of symphony by Philip Glass commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra.

Earlier this month, the Kennedy Center filed a lawsuit against jazz performer Chuck Redd who refused to perform after Trump’s name was added to the institution by board members he appointed.

The lawsuit surfaced as Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty filed an amended complaint in her own lawsuit against the Kennedy Center. And the National Symphony Orchestra executive director Jean Davidson announced she was leaving for the Los Angeles-based Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts.

In November, Senate Democrats indicated they had launched an investigation into Grenell, stating that Kennedy Center had become a “swamp for cronyism” and corruption under his leadership.

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