Trump Kennedy Center Threatens $1M Lawsuit Against Jazz Musician

Ambassador Richard Grenell, the Trump-appointed president of the Kennedy Center, said the group will search $1 million in damages from famous jazz musician Chuck Redd after Redd abruptly canceled this yr’s free Christmas Eve live performance in protest of the heart’s renaming to “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”

In the letter despatched Dec. 26 to Redd, first reported by the AP, Grenell wrote: “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.”

“This is your official notice that we will seek $1 million in damages from you for this political stunt,” Grenell wrote.

In a put up on X Friday evening about his authorized risk to Redd, Grenell said, “The left is boycotting the Arts because Trump is supporting the Arts. But we will not let them cancel shows without consequences. The Arts are for everyone — and the Left is mad about it.”

Redd didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

Redd had led the annual Christmas Eve jazz live performance at the Kennedy Center since 2006. On Wednesday, he told the AP that he nixed this yr’s event after Trump’s title was added to the group’s constructing and web site. “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 said, per the AP.

Workers on Dec. 19 added Trump’s title to the heart, coming sooner or later after the White House claimed that the Kennedy Center board of trustees — handpicked by President Trump — voted unanimously to rename the facility the “Trump Kennedy Center.”

Legal specialists say the renaming of the heart is against the law, because a 1964 federal legislation established its title as “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts” after the slain president and explicitly prohibits the board of trustees from including any other title to the constructing’s exterior. On Monday (Dec. 22), U.S. Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) sued Trump and the Kennedy Center’s board searching for to pressure the elimination of Trump’s title from the group, saying an act of Congress is required to alter its title.

The free Dec. 24 live performance at the Kennedy Center had been scheduled to happen Tuesday at 12 p.m. at the heart’s Millennium Stage. “Join in our annual Christmas Eve Jazz Jam for an evening of music that’ll fill you with holiday cheer,” the cultural heart had said in selling the event.

Redd, 67, is “well known internationally as a performer on drums and vibraphone” and is featured on more than 80 recordings, according to his web site. The musician started recording and touring at the age of 21 when he joined the Charlie Byrd Trio. He also turned a member of the Great Guitars (Barney Kessel, Byrd and Herb Ellis) and served as artist-in-residence at the Smithsonian Jazz Café in Washington, D.C., from 2004-08. Redd also was a member of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra for 15 years.

After Trump took workplace for a second time period in February 2025, Kennedy Center president Deborah Rutter was fired. Trump then appointed Grenell, who was ambassador to Germany during the first Trump administration and had served as Trump’s envoy for particular missions. Trump also ousted Democratic board members of the Kennedy Center and changed them together with his personal allies.

Trump had criticized the Kennedy Center for curating woke programming. “NO MORE DRAG SHOWS, OR OTHER ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA — ONLY THE BEST,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in saying Grenell’s appointment. At the Kennedy Center’s opening evening of “Les Misérables” in June, 4 drag queens attended the performance and have been seated below the presidential box, TGB reported.

Separately Friday, Trump posted photographs on Truth Social of “potential marble armrests” for seats at the Kennedy Center. “Unlike anything ever done or seen before!” the president wrote.