Richard Grenell, the out Kennedy Center president, is demanding a jazz musician pay up for canceling an annual free Christmas Eve performance after Donald Trump added his name to the center.
“Your decision to withdraw at the last moment—explicitly in response to the Center’s recent renaming, which honors President Trump’s extraordinary efforts to save this national treasure—is classic intolerance and very costly to a non-profit Arts institution,” Grenell, a MAGA Republican and Trump devotee, wrote in a letter to Chuck Redd, according to the Associated Press.
CNN notes that in a “Trump Kennedy Center” logo appeared on the letterhead.
Grenell also told Redd he would seek $1 million in damages, calling Redd's actions a "political stunt."
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Redd, who plays vibraphone and other percussion, has hosted the holiday jazz concert for about 20 years.
“When I saw the name change on the Kennedy Center website and then hours later on the building, I chose to cancel our concert,” Redd told the AP.
“I’ve been performing at the Kennedy Center since the beginning of my career and I was saddened to see this name change,” he told CNN.
Earlier this month, the John F. Kennedy Center of the Performing Arts' board of trustees — who were selected by Trump — voted to add Trump's name to the center. It was added shortly after. The move has been met with criticism. U.S. Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, a Democrat who is an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center board, has already brought a legal challenge to the renaming since the original name was established through a law passed by Congress. That law bars the board from making the center a memorial to someone else and it also prohibits adding another person's name on the building.
Several Kennedy family members have expressed outrage over Trump's move.
Since Trump took over the center earlier this year, artists have shunned the once-celebrated institution.
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