JFK grandson rips move to name Kennedy Center theater after Melania Trump: This administration ‘stands for freedom of oppression'
'A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces — but also by the men it honors, the men it remembers,' Schlossberg, quoting his grandfather, wrote in a Tuesday post on Instagram.
'JFK believed the arts made our country great and could be our most effective weapon in the fight for civil rights and against authoritarian governments around the world,' Schlossberg, a vocal critic of President Trump, said.
'The Trump administration stands for freedom of oppression, not expression,' he added.
'[Trump] uses his awesome powers to suppress free expression and instill fear,' the 32-year-old son of former U.S. ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg said.
Schlossberg's social media post came after House Republicans on the Appropriations Committee approved an amendment to the interior, environment and related agencies annual spending bill on Tuesday that would rename the opera house in the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts the 'First Lady Melania Trump Opera House.'
Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) called the move an 'excellent way to recognize [Melania Trump's] support and commitment to promoting the arts.'
The Opera House renaming effort came after the president, accusing the Kennedy Center of being too 'woke,' overhauled its board in February and named himself its chair.
But Schlossberg said the potential name change to the prominent institution's Opera House was not 'about the arts.'
'Trump is obsessed with being bigger than JFK , with minimizing the many heroes of our past, as if that elevates him. It doesn't,' he said.
'But there's hope,' Schlossberg wrote to his nearly 700,000 followers, 'art lasts forever, and no one can change what JFK and our shared history stands for.'
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Associated Press
a few seconds ago
- Associated Press
What's known and not yet known about the Justice Department's scrutiny of Trump-Russia probe origins
WASHINGTON (AP) — News that Attorney General Pam Bondi is moving to criminally investigate the Obama-era origins of the Trump-Russia investigation means that one of the most studied, and politically polarizing, chapters of modern American history will be under the microscope yet again. Here's a look at what's known and not yet known about the latest Justice Department revelation: A saga with a long backstory Perhaps no issue continues to aggravate President Donald Trump more than the assessment by intelligence officials that Russia interfered in the 2016 election on his behalf and the investigation by law enforcement into whether his campaign colluded with Moscow to tip the outcome of the contest. Robert Mueller, the former FBI director tapped as special counsel by Trump's first Justice Department to investigate, found that Russia had waged a multi-prong operation in Trump's favor and that the Republican president's campaign welcomed the aid. But Mueller did not find sufficient evidence of a criminal conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign. As president for a second time, Trump has made no secret of his desire to use the Justice Department as a weapon of retribution against perceived political adversaries he sees as having smeared him, including by calling for Obama-era officials to be jailed. And his administration, now more broadly and across multiple agencies, has been engaged in a effort to reopen the long-accepted conclusion — including among prominent Republicans — of Russian interference and to scrutinize the officials involved in reaching that assessment. A Bondi grand jury directive Bondi, a Trump loyalist, has directed Justice Department prosecutors to present evidence related to the Russia inquiry to a grand jury. Grand juries are tools used by prosecutors to issue subpoenas for records and prosecutors and to produce indictments based on the evidence they receive. The bar is low for an indictment given that the presentation of evidence by prosecutors is one-sided, though grand juries do have the option to decline to indict and have done so in the past. A person familiar with the matter confirmed Bondi's directive to The Associated Press but key questions remain. It was not disclosed, for instance, which prosecutors are pursuing the investigation, where the grand jury that might hear evidence is located and whether and when law enforcement officials might seek to bring criminal charges. The Justice Department, in an unusual statement last month, appeared to confirm the existence of an investigation into former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director James Brennan but provided no details or specifics. Potential targets of probe remain unclear It's not clear who might be targeted in the investigation, but the Trump administration has been aggressively challenging intelligence community conclusions about Russia's actions and intentions that had long ago seemed settled. It's been a welcome diversion for the administration as it confronts a wave of criticism from Trump's base and conservative influencers over the handling of records from the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking investigation. In the last month, Trump administration officials and allies have released a series of documents aimed at casting doubt on the extent of interference and at portraying the original Russia investigation as an Obama administration frame-job. The documents have been hailed as incontrovertible proof of a conspiracy, but a close inspection of the records shows they fall well short of that. Among the documents released by Tulsi Gabbard, the administration's director of national intelligence, are emails from 2016 showing that Obama administration officials recognized in 2016 that Russians had not hacked state election systems to manipulate votes in favor of Trump. But the absence of evidence that votes were switched — something the Obama administration never alleged — has no bearing on the ample evidence of other forms of Russia interference, including a hack-and-leak operation involving Democratic emails and a covert social media campaign aimed at sowing discord and spreading disinformation. Last week, Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, released a previously classified annex of a 2023 report by John Durham, the special counsel appointed by the first Trump administration to hunt for government misconduct in the Russia probe. The annex included a series of emails, including one from July 2016 that was purportedly sent by a senior staffer at a philanthropic organization founded by billionaire investor George Soros, that referred to a plan approved by then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to falsely link Trump to Russia. But Durham's own report took pain to note that investigators had not corroborated the communications as authentic and said the best assessment was that the message was 'a composites of several emails' the Russians had obtained from hacking — raising the likelihood that it was a product of Russian disinformation. Fresh scrutiny has also centered around the intelligence community assessment on Russian election interference, which was published in January 2017. An annex in a classified version of the assessment contained a summary of the so-called Steele dossier — a compilation of opposition research that included uncorroborated rumors and salacious gossip about Trump and Russia. The latest in a series of investigations Just as Russian interference has been heavily scrutinized, so too has the U.S. government's response to it. Multiple government reports, including not only from Mueller but also a Republican-led Senate intelligence committee that included current Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have documented Russia's activities in sweeping details. To be sure, reports from the Justice Department inspector general and Durham also identified significant flaws in the FBI's Russia investigation, including errors and omissions in applications the Justice Department submitted to a secretive surveillance court to eavesdrop on a national security adviser to the 2016 Trump campaign. But Durham found no criminal wrongdoing among government officials, bringing three criminal cases — two against private citizens that resulted in acquittals at trial and a third against a little-known FBI lawyer who pleaded guilty to doctoring an email. It is unclear if there is any criminal wrongdoing that exists that Durham, who launched his investigation in 2019 and concluded it four years later, somehow missed during his sprawling inquiry.
Fox News
a few seconds ago
- Fox News
Texas House speaker ‘confident' that redistricting bill will be passed in a 'timely manner'
Texas House of Representatives Speaker Dustin Burrows discusses the state of the redistricting bill that would add five more House seats to Texas on 'The Story.'
Fox News
a few seconds ago
- Fox News
Caldwell: Democrats Would Rather Go Viral Than Help The People They've Lost
Fox News Political Analyst Gianno Caldwell joins Fox Across America With Jimmy Failla to shed light on what's driving the Democratic Party's cratering popularity with voters over the past year. 'If you look at the Wall Street Journal polling from just last month, and when I say last month we're talking, I think it was like July 25th, it showed that every day Americans have a 65% unfavorable approval rating for the Democratic Party. But they look at Republicans favorable in terms of people who can handle getting issues, key issues done. And we're talking about those that they voted for, table kitchen issues, like the economy, immigration, and many of those things. They look at Republicans favorably on that front. Democrats have a very big issue. I mentioned this on Harris Falkner's show today. It's viral versus policy. They rather go viral than to help the people that they've lost. And I'm talking about the working-class people like union workers in Michigan and many other places, working- class, middle-class Americans who believe that they do not have their best interests at heart. And remember, Democrats used to be the party of heart. It wasn't necessarily common sense, it wasn't necessary reason, but you felt good about voting for them, regardless of any of the issues lined up from an economic perspective or immigration perspective for you as a person. And I'm talking mainly young folks really felt this way. But now they're not even a party of heart, they're the party of hate. And that's honestly where they've come.' Gianno Caldwell Talks About How He Turned Pain Into Purpose Jimmy and Gianno also share their thoughts on the left-wing outrage mob's nonsensical attacks against actress Sydney Sweeney and her new ad campaign with American Eagle. Listen to the podcast to hear what else they discussed!
