Transcript of Ben Folds Responds to Performers Leaving Kennedy Center

Now, about a dozen performers have looked at Donald Trump and his phony board at the Kennedy Center, which he vandalized and calls the Trump Kennedy Center unlawfully. And these performers are saying, We quit. We are not going to be performing for this regime. Also, attendance is down so much. It's like no one's even showing up to this place, this propaganda vandalized center by this Trump regime. So here's the latest right here. The Washington National Opera decided on Friday to move out of its longtime home at the Kennedy Center. And they've been at the Kennedy Center since the 1970s, and they're saying goodbye there. Now we have a list of at least 10 additional acts that have canceled at the Kennedy Center. Hamilton, of course, the Broadway musical, Chuck Red, the leader of the Kennedy Center's annual jazz jams, Christmas. The Cookers, the Jazz Supergroup canceled a pair of shows. Stephen Schwartz, the Wicked Composer, withdrawn as host of the Washington National Opera Gala set for May 16. You have Issa Ray, the Insecure, Star, canceled a sold out March 16, 2025. Stop. Bella Fleck, canceled a trio of concerts with the National Sympathy Orchestra, scheduled for February 2025.

Rhianna Giddens, the Grammian winning musician, canceled the 11th, 2025 concert at the Kennedy Center. Low Cut Connie, the Philadelphia Rockers, called off a February 2025 performance. Peter Wolf, Christie Lee, Doug Barone, Balloon, Amonda Ruhm, and others. And then, of course, earlier in the year, you had Ben Foulds immediately stepping down in February as an artistic advisor there at the Kennedy Center, Shonda Rimes, Renee Fleming, and others. And you remember, you may remember, we interviewed Ben Foulds back in February when he resigned right away. As soon as the Trump regime said that they were changing that board and they were going to be intervening with their propaganda, he was like, I am gone. He resigned from the National Symphony Orchestra. As Trump seised the center, his statement was, Given the developments at the Kennedy Center, effective today, I'm resigning as the advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra. Not for me, he said. And again, you may remember that interview that I did with him, which has since gone mega viral, over two and a half million views. Here's what some DC residents are saying about the vandalizing of the Trump, Trump calling it the Trump Kennedy Center and vandalizing it by plastering his name on it.

Here, play this clip. Feeling like democracy died today. This is history happening today, and we should all be shocked, shocked that a felon, a convicted felon, and a thug, and by all means, a grifter has just stuck his name on top of a national monument. This is a desecration. Here's what Jim Acosta had to say when he was there that day. Let's play it.

Well, here we are at the scene of yet another crime committed by Donald Trump. He has vandalized the Kennedy Center by putting his name on it. And he just needs to understand that, first First of all, he can't do this single-handedly. Only Congress can authorize a change of name to the Kennedy Center. But yet he doesn't care about the law. He doesn't care what is appropriate. He's gone and vandalized the Kennedy Center, which is, we should note, the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. It was named after President Kennedy after he was assassinated. Donald Trump should show some respect for that, but of course, he doesn't do that. This is what needs to We, the American people, are not going to call the Kennedy Center, the Trump Kennedy Center, just like we're not going to call the Department of Defense, the Department of War, or the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of America. We, the sane, rational American people, are not going to go along with that. So Trump can act like a child. He can be a vandal, put his name up on all of these buildings, but it's not going to change what the rest of us do in response to what has been a childish and lawless administration.

Now I want to bring in Ben Ben Foulds, American singer, songwriter, and composer. Ben Foulds, great to have you back on the Midas Touch Network. And we interviewed you when you resigned as artistic advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra back in February. A lot has happened since our last interview. Talk to us about what you're seeing right now with Trump vandalizing. How do you contextualize all this?

Well, it's really sad. The The Kennedy Center had so many great missions, and it is a memorial as well. It's as close to sacred stuff as you can get for our federal government. But aside from that, it really is playing out roughly the way that it felt it would for me a year ago. I'm not saying that I understood how events would unfold exactly, but it was clearly the first step of It was an authoritarian move. It was an authoritarian first step. Obviously, they weren't going to start by trying to steamroll our late night comedians. They thought they would run over us first. That's much easier because it's close to home and they know what I knew how to do it. But now the things that are happening are no surprise because it wasn't just him. I think people misunderstand. It's not just him going in and wanting to book bands or something. It's commandeering the government, the arts. Then from there, that's expression. That's freedom of expression. From there, you move on to the networks and to Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel in 60 Minutes, and you just keep steamrolling. So I was sick on my stomach when I quit because, one, I knew they were going to run in the ground.

No one that they were appointing had any experience in arts administration, but that was never the point. The point was to take that run over it, and move on. So it's rotting over next to the Potamic in the moment, and it's just sad.

One of the things that we talked about back in February was how the Kennedy Center was actually a place where people who fled repressive regimes, whose artistic endeavors and pursuits were harmed and squashed by authoritarians could play the National Symphony Orchestra. You talked about the history of some of these composers here who played at the Kennedy Center as a celebration of freedom that they found in the United States. And so you, as a student of history, saw the moment that Donald Trump was doing what he did with that board. You said, This is just authoritarian 101. Talk to us about that unique history of the-Yeah.

Well, the Kennedy Center... Well, the National Symphony Orchestra, who, of course, was an orchestra before the Kennedy Center was there, They're a separate entity. They're just trapped in the building right now. But the National Symphony Orchestra, one of the first directors of the orchestra was Rostropowitch. His name is so long that everyone just calls him Slava. He was Shostakovitch, who was famous, Dimitri Shostakovitch, famous composer. He was basically his right-hand man, an incredible cellist and a great conductor. He fled the Soviet Union. And he found himself the director of the National Seventh Orchestra at the Kennedy Center. His homie, Shostakovich. Shostakovich was constantly in danger of being arrested, his friends being arrested, tortured, killed, because he was trying to make artistic stands. What you know when you see a place being taken over like that, you can think about what what Slava would have thought coming from the USSR and being able to express himself, being able to play his friend's music, Shostakovich, there without being threatened because the government had no say. A politics, government dictator has no say over the arts. You leave that alone. That's for the people. When they want to take that over, that's just propaganda.

That is what made me to begin with, and nothing that's unfolding now seems surprising. Putting Trump's name on the place, it is. It's like he's spray-painted his name on the side of it. But it's still the center it was. It's just being held hostage at the moment. I'm in some ways, I think it's like it reminds me of the picture, the photograph or the footage of Hitler in front of the Eiffel Tower. Like, Look what I've got. That's what it seems like when he put his name on.

What does it tell you, though, when you see the resignations and the other individuals quitting? Everybody has their own time for it. I don't fault someone who waited a little bit later or whatever. I mean, you took the stand when you did because you saw what was happening and you studied history that way. But what do you make of what's happening, especially when it's like the Washington National Opera that's been there for basically 50 years? Then what do you say to other individuals there who are performing but they're uncomfortable and they're afraid, are we going to get sued by Rick Grinnell, and he's like, How do you navigate this? First, what does it say to you about the resignations? How do you think people navigate it?

Well, it's tricky because it's really different for everybody. I mean, for instance, my friends in the National Symphony Orchestra, some of them have varying views about how they should be handling this, but nobody's happy or inspired by it. They're really worried about their jobs, and they're in a different position than me. I was in a position to draw attention to this, and I knew that as a curator, that there's no way that I could curate fairly and safely. I can't bring in artists who might have different views than Rick Grinnell or Trump. I can't bring those people in. Like, look, They had Yasmin Williams, the boot that they're paid to do it. I think that everyone has to find their own space there. I personally wouldn't touch the place while it's nuclear right now, because I don't think that you're really... I wouldn't feel safe playing there. I wouldn't think that I was in good hands. I wouldn't think people people are going to show up. Even if I'm just going to be a total capitalist about it, it's like, Yeah, let the market speak. How's the Kennedy Center doing? Oops, don't play there. That venue can't draw a crowd, so they don't know what they're doing there.

I don't see any reason to be there. Now, an organization like the Opera, they have a board. They have a whole kinds of contracts with them. We'll see what happens. But the individuals that work for them are just people trying to a living in the arts, and they just got to show up at work. It's really, really unfortunate. It's really sad. It makes me sad for all of them.

As a student of history, you foreseeing... I mean, look, when Trump won and started these pronouncements, seemed it was going in a direction. But recognizing what it meant when he had his eye on the Kennedy Center, you were able to say there's something specific about this view of dominating a cultural zeitgeist that authoritarians in the past have seized on. And he has that demented, malignant, narcissistic grasp. But now where we're at, we're a year into this thing. There have been big no king's protests. The institutions have bent and many have broken. There's resiliency in the people. So how do you How do you see where we are right now, mid to beginning of January, 2026? And what do you want to see?

Well, I think artist, it's the same as I felt a year ago. I think that the responsibility and the right of artists is to express honestly. It's a little bit sometimes like reportage. It's a little bit like journalism. I think that that is what artists need to do right now while we still can't. Obviously, you don't have to do it at the Kennedy Center. It was an amazing place with an amazing mission and all kinds of access to facilities, and it was beautiful. And by the way, it used to make some money, and now it's not run well. But the artist, right now, we should all be We're really expressing ourselves with no... There was a time, I think, and I came up in this era of the '90s, this shut up and sing era where you're worried you're going to alienate your artist. I think right now is the time to absolutely stand up and express yourself. If that's political, do it. If it's social, do it. If it's what you love for lunch, hey, that's fine, too. But be honest in your reporting because you may not have that luxury if we keep going like we're going.

Better to do it now. Better to show up at the protest now than have to show up in the protest in a year and worried about getting jailed and killed. Now is the time to... The artist's job has always been to be a little ahead of the curve where things are going. The artist can explain that in terms that no one else is allowed to. It doesn't have to make sense. It has to feel right, and that's what moves people. The reason the arts are important, and all these people said they weren't important, that we're on the right side of the government, they said, The arts don't matter. We don't need to fund it. Boy, they sure thought it was important when it came to the Kennedy Center. They took that over in one month. The arts are important, and the artist is really needed right now.

Yeah, and I see that you're part of the lineup of the Grand Park Music Festival in Chicago, and you're playing in other venues where you're giving people hope there in areas, too, that the Trump regime is attacking. Before we go, anything else you wanted to mention before we go?

No. I think when the National Symphony Orchestra has opportunities to play at Wolf Trap and they're playing other venues, I really would love to see people in the DC area support that. The National Symphony Orchestra is not the Kennedy Center, and they're some of the finest musicians in the country, and they're just basically held hostage inside a building with someone spray-painted their name on the outside. No one shows up to their shows anymore. And that's what I would tell people.

Ben Foulds, thanks for joining us again.

Thanks, Ben.

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