BOMBSHELL: The Kennedy Center Isn’t Closed For “Renovations”—It’s Bankrupt! (w/ Josef Palermo)
Bulwark Takes
The Bulwark
4.7 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 22 April 2026
⏱️ 21 minutes
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Summary
Sonny Bunch speaks with whistleblower Josef Palermo, who saw the collapse of the Kennedy Center from the inside. The Kennedy Center president Ric Grenell and the Trump administration said the shutdown was about renovations. But Palermo says the real story is financial collapse, political interference, and a dramatic shift away from the institution’s mission. From six-figure ticket markups to a fundraising pitch delivered during an October 7 memorial, Palermo lays out how things went wrong and how fast it happened.
Read more from Josef Palermo: https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026/04/inside-kennedy-center-shutdown-drama/686801/
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the bulwark. My name is Sunny Bunchime. I'm culture editor at the |
| 0:03.7 | bulwark. And I'm very pleased to be joined today by Joseph Palermo. We're going to be talking about a piece he wrote in the Atlantic about the collapse of the Kennedy Center. You saw this from the inside. And it's a story that's near and dear to my heart as again, the culture editor. I spent a fair amount of time at the Kennedy Center, just going to events, |
| 0:21.2 | frankly, just going to enjoy the performances and the art and everything that is there. |
| 0:25.9 | And it has been distressing to watch it, you know, kind of get pulled down from the inside |
| 0:32.9 | by this current Trump administration. Joseph, thanks for, thanks for being on today. |
| 0:38.9 | Thank you for having me. |
| 0:40.2 | So I want to talk about this piece because, first, |
| 0:43.4 | can you just let folks know how you got involved with the Kennedy Center? |
| 0:47.2 | Because you were not there before the new administration. |
| 0:50.1 | You actually kind of pitched yourself to Rick Rinell. |
| 0:53.2 | How did that come about? |
| 0:54.3 | Yeah, sure, absolutely. |
| 0:55.1 | So I had been working with a different nonprofit on a project that we were putting together |
| 1:00.8 | for America's 250th anniversary this year for the National Mall. |
| 1:05.0 | The foundation that was financing the project in March of last year decided to withdraw their funding. It was just |
| 1:13.0 | sort of a reassessment of their funding priorities in the wake of the election results in |
| 1:17.1 | 2024. So around that time, I saw that, you know, Rick Rinell had become head of the Kennedy Center |
| 1:26.9 | and I just figured I would, you know, |
| 1:29.9 | reach out. I had been developing this project for about a year, year and a half at that point. |
| 1:35.2 | And so I, you know, wanted to produce the project nonetheless, and I reached out to see if |
| 1:40.8 | they might be interested at the Kennedy Center and hosting it as part of their own America 250 celebrations. And, you know, one of the things that you mentioned early on is |
| 1:50.3 | you're not a Trump guy, you're not a MAGA guy. You, you know, you are, you kind of pitched yourself |
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