Kennedy Center President Deborah F. Rutter, brought on by Rubenstein in 2014, resigned soon after the board shake-up. Trump replaced her, on an interim basis, with diplomat Richard Grenell, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Germany during the president's first term.

The president doesn’t merely want to break the government bureaucracy. He wants to reprogram what the arts mean to the American people.

President Donald Trump fired most of the center's board of trustees earlier this month and named himself chairman.