Vice President JD Vance faced an openly hostile reception at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where he was booed by attendees during a National Symphony Orchestra performance on Thursday night.
Most ominously, a person in the audience was heard on video shouting, “Kill that vice!” while the crowd jeered and booed Vance.
Boos for JD Vance as he enters tonight’s concert at the Kennedy Center pic.twitter.com/IWTsJUWjCR
— Andrew Roth (@Andrew__Roth) March 13, 2025
This incident occurred amid controversy surrounding President Donald Trump’s recent overhaul of the Kennedy Center’s leadership, including his self-appointment as chairman and the installation of allies such as Vance’s wife, Usha Vance, on the board.
As Vanity Fair reports:
The Vances were met with yelling and shouts of “You ruined this place!” according to The Guardian, which shared footage of the vice president waving to the crowd from his balcony box seat. The National Symphony Orchestra performance of Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 2 and Stravinsky’s Petrushka began 30 minutes late, as reported by The Washington Post, after attendees waited in a lengthy security line prior to Vance’s arrival. The performance went uninterrupted, but the Post says the VP’s presence was a buzzy topic during intermission.
The following morning, Richard Grenell, whom Donald Trump named as the center’s new interim director, posted on Elon Musk’s X that footage of Vance being booed “should challenge us all to commit to making the Kennedy Center a place where everyone is welcomed.” Grenell, who has announced that the center will stage “a big, huge celebration of the birth of Christ at Christmas,” wrote, “It troubles me to see that so many in the audience appear to be white and intolerant of diverse political views,” continuing, “Diversity is our strength. We must do better. We must welcome EVERYONE. We will not allow the Kennedy Center to be an intolerant place.”
This video should challenge us all to commit to making the Kennedy Center a place where everyone is welcomed.
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) March 14, 2025
It troubles me to see that so many in the audience appear to be white and intolerant of diverse political views. Diversity is our strength.
We must do better. We must… https://t.co/I2KuKIZuQ7
Trump’s anti-woke overhaul of the Kennedy Center began last month, when he named himself chairman of the institution, despite never having seen a show at said Kennedy Center. Still apparently holding tight to his 2017 grudge over celebrities skipping the Kennedy Center Honors awards reception at the White House, which led him to shun the ceremony for the remainder of his term, Trump purged the center’s once bipartisan board. He replaced the longtime board chair, billionaire David Rubenstein, and president Deborah Rutter, with appointees like Usha Vance, who was previously secretary of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra board, as well as Trump chief of staff Susie Wiles, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Fox News hosts Laura Ingraham and Maria Bartiromo.
Issa Rae and Rhiannon Giddens promptly canceled their Kennedy Center appearances, as did Lin-Manuel Miranda, who announced that a planned run of Hamilton at the Kennedy Center tied to the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence would no longer happen. TV mogul Shonda Rhimes and musician Ben Folds cut their respective ties to the institution. Meanwhile, comedian W. Kamau Bell honored his scheduled set at the venue as a protest, vowing to “turn the ‘wokey’ up to eleven!”
Other notable figures like Shonda Rhimes, Ben Folds and Renée Fleming resigned in protest. The president’s agenda includes banning certain shows, such as drag performances, which has sparked further public outcry and demonstrations outside the center.
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Burn the place down. My tax dollars do not need to go to a place like this. If they want their own country club go build it and pay for it themselves. Then they can do what they want. So they need to put up are shut up.
What a sad display from an audience. They should be ashamed of themselves.
If you no longer like it in the Kennedy Center, then don’t let the door hit you in the butt on the way out. Simple, just do not go.
White liberals (progressives,communists) thrive on hate.