The Obama Presidential Center's structural engineer says boldness was the goal, calling the tower's design an unprecedented architectural statement.
Critics mocked the Obama Presidential Center's "land acknowledgement" as performative, while the center hosted Native American dance performances Saturday.
The Obama Presidential Center features a permanent land acknowledgment display near the museum tower, sparking debate given the site's history.
The plaintiff in the case, Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty, said by refusing to take steps to resume shows, the Kennedy Center is in violation of a previous court order.
Mary Trump has spent years telling anyone who will listen that her uncle cannot bear to be seen losing. This week she pointed to a tarp draped over the Kennedy Center as her latest exhibit.In the newest edition of her newsletter, the segment she calls "Trump Trolls Trump," the clinical psychologist and niece of the president argued that the covering left over the building's facade was not about construction logistics. It was about ego. Crews began stripping Donald Trump's name off the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts after a federal judge ruled the renaming illegal, and Mary Trump claimed the tarp stayed up for a revealing reason. Because he is "such an insecure, thin skinned baby," she wrote, "they left the tarp up so we cannot actually watch Donald's letters being removed."It is the kind of read that lands differently coming from her than from an ordinary commentator. As the president's niece and the author of a bestselling book diagnosing the psychology of her own family, Mary Trump has built her public profile on the argument that her uncle's behavior is driven by a fragile need to never appear weak. The tarp, in her telling, is that need made physical.The underlying events are not in dispute. U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper determined that the president's name had been illegally added to the center, after a board stacked with Trump loyalists voted in December 2025 to rebrand it. The court ordered the name removed and blocked the administration's plan to close the venue for a lengthy renovation. After a last-minute scramble of appeals and a requested extension blamed on thunderstorms, workers began prying the lettering off the facade in the early hours of June 13, with scaffolding and tarp covering the wall.Mary Trump found the cover-up almost too fitting. The same tarp meant to spare her uncle the indignity of watching his own name come down, she noted, also blocks the public from seeing the name of the man the building was actually built to honor. "We cannot see the name of John Fitzgerald Kennedy," she wrote, "the man for whom the Kennedy Center was actually named."She returned to the theme that animates her entire project: a man who treats every loss as something to be hidden, spun, or blamed on someone else. Throughout the newsletter she refers to him only as "Donald," a small but deliberate choice that keeps the family relationship in the frame and strips away the deference of his title.Her broader point was not subtle. The week, she argued, was a parade of self-inflicted embarrassments dressed up as strength, "corruption masquerading as governance" and "incompetence disguised as confidence." The Kennedy Center tarp simply gave her the cleanest image for it.The claim that the tarp was kept up to shield Trump's feelings is Mary Trump's interpretation, not a stated explanation from the administration, which has cited the appeals process and the building's condition.
More arrests were made on Saturday at the Reflecting Pool in Washington, DC, as law enforcement cracks down on vandals destroying the new renovations. At least two, including former Olympian David Hearn, were arrested on Saturday after destroying the rubber sealant at the bottom of the pool and attempting to stop workers from clearing algae. The post (VIDEO) Several More Arrested at Reflecting Pool for Attempting to Rip Sealant Out appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Online critics are laughing at Trump's convoluted plot to throw off the press by renaming Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).In a Saturday morning Truth Social post, Trump floated a plan to rename ICE to the "National Immigration and Customs Enforcement," or NICE. He wrote that it would "totally discombobulate Crooked, Dishonest, and Unpatriotic Reporters and Journalists.""Fun fact: if you say 'an ICE facility' and 'a NICE facility' out loud, they sound exactly the same," quipped immigration policy analyst Aaron Reichlin-Melnick on X."Because Americans will feel much better watching 'NICE' agents execute their neighbours in broad daylight," joked Canadian political commentator and radio host Dean Blundell."Our president is laser focused on the important things," author Jennifer Erin Valent sarcastically wrote. "Like social media polls about his favorite acronyms and nasty nicknames.""Trump sure has a thing about particular LETTERS..." posted former pro Tennis player turned political commentator Martina Navratilova."His brain is 100 large curd cottage cheese," wrote GOP political strategist Jeff Timmer, using the emphatic, underlined "100" emoji.
Despite a truce, conflict erupted in southern Lebanon Saturday between Israel and Hezbollah within hours of reaching a cease-fire.
President Trump on Friday highlighted the vandalism of the monuments in Washington, DC, and slammed liberal ABC reporter Jonathan Karl for celebrating the destruction of the Capital. Leftists in DC have inscribed "86 47," calling for Trump's death, on the grass of the National Mall and on the bottom of the Reflecting Pool in recent days. The post NEW: Trump Comments on Vandalism of Reflecting Pool – Nukes “Lightweight” Jonathan Karl for “Trying to Rip the Rubber Off of the Surface” (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.