Presidential Election of 2024

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    Coming Soon to Trump’s Kennedy Center: A Celebration of Christ

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    President Trump took control of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington only last week. But his administration is already making plans for reshaping the institution’s programming.Chief among them: a celebration of Christ planned for December. Richard Grenell, whom Mr. Trump named as the Kennedy Center’s new president, told a conservative gathering on Friday that the “big change” at the center would be that “we are doing a big, huge celebration of the birth of Christ at Christmas.”“How crazy is it to think that we’re going to celebrate Christ at Christmas with a big traditional production, to celebrate what we are all celebrating in the world during Christmastime, which is the birth of Christ?” Mr. Grenell said at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Oxon Hill, Md.The Kennedy Center has long held Christmas-themed events.Last December, the center hosted “A Candlelight Christmas” by the Washington Chorus; “A Family Christmas” by the Choral Arts Society of Washington; and “Go Tell It,” a Christmas celebration by the Alfred Street Baptist Church, a prominent Black church in Virginia. (On Sunday, the church said it would cancel its Christmas concert there this year because the Kennedy Center’s new leaders stood in opposition to the “longstanding tradition of honoring artistic expression across all backgrounds.”)Mr. Grenell’s comments were his first public remarks in which he discussed his plans as the Kennedy Center’s new leader. His appointment was part of a series of extraordinary actions Mr. Trump took to solidify control over the Kennedy Center, which has been a bipartisan institution throughout its 54-year history.Mr. Trump, who stayed away from the Kennedy Center Honors during his first term after some of the artists being honored criticized him, stunned the cultural world when he decided this month to purge the center’s board of all Biden appointees and install himself as chairman, ousting the financier David M. Rubenstein, the center’s largest donor. The new board fired Deborah F. Rutter, the center’s president for more than a decade, and the post was given to Mr. Grenell, a Trump loyalist who was ambassador to Germany during the president’s first term.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Comedian Looking for Something All of America Can Laugh At

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      Partway through his latest special, “Lonely Flowers,” the comedian Roy Wood Jr. tells the story of the time he accidentally hired a white photographer. Or, as he corrects himself, he hired a photographer who he did not think would be white until he showed up. Whenever he travels to a city for a gig, he explains, artists who live there reach out to him to offer their services. He respects their hustle and sometimes accepts those offers, like the one he got from a guy who wanted to take some pictures of him. “Come on take the pictures,” Wood wrote back. “I’ll see you next week, Deon!”Wood drops Deon’s name casually, letting the audience pick up on the joke before he has to explain it. As they start to lose it, Wood joins them in astonishment. Pitching his body forward, throwing his arms out and bugging his eyes, he yells: “You see what I’m saying? I don’t know no white Deons either! Never met one!”Deon ends up being a bald, unimaginably chiseled military veteran with menacing tattoos consisting of “an animal, a death threat then a Bible verse” decorating his arms, the kind of white man that a Black person might not want to be left alone with. Wood is terrified of him — he makes sure to pay him up front — but he finds him unexpectedly sympathetic. It turns out that after returning from service abroad, Deon feels intensely isolated, and photography gives him a sense of purpose.Onstage, Wood is unhurried, an amiable man who, despite being 46, has the countenance of a churchgoing grandfather who still starches his Sunday suit. He is a master of the leisurely, even comforting, story that plays to his audience’s expectations of what is good, kind and virtuous, only to foil those expectations with a well-timed word or mischievous glance.When I first watched “Lonely Flowers,” I could feel this story about Deon teetering toward the saccharine: Maybe we can all get along, or at least get along better, if we just listen to one another. But then Wood lets us in on a disturbing detail: “I like the camera,” Deon told him, “ ’cause, you know, I get to look down the crosshair and still shoot people.” Wood’s look of earnest sympathy dissolves, and we’re left wondering how to feel about Deon after all.Then the joke rounds yet another corner: Wood turns serious again, recalling how sincerely Deon thanked him in the greenroom, shaking his hand firmly and looking him right in the eye. “I was like, Wooowww,” Wood says, his voice dropping to a stage whisper, seemingly humbled by the interaction. But then we reach the other side of his pause: “He was about to kill some people.” Wood imagines Deon at home, cleaning his rifle right up to the moment Wood contacts him. “We’ll never know how many lives I saved,” Wood says triumphantly, “because I took a chance on a white man!”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Issa Rae Cancels Kennedy Center Appearance After Trump’s Takeover

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      President Trump’s takeover of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington has prompted an outcry in the cultural community, with several artists resigning their posts or canceling engagements at the center.Mr. Trump made himself chairman of the center on Wednesday, a few days after he purged the board of Biden appointees. The new board, stacked with Trump loyalists, elected Mr. Trump chairman and fired the Kennedy Center’s longtime president, Deborah F. Rutter. The board named Richard Grenell, who was ambassador to Germany during the first Trump administration, interim president.The new leadership has moved swiftly to reshape the Kennedy Center’s upper ranks. In addition to Ms. Rutter, several other longtime staff members were fired on Wednesday, including top officials overseeing public relations and governance.Here’s a look at the stars who have resigned from the Kennedy Center or canceled shows in the wake of Mr. Trump’s takeover:Issa RaeMs. Rae, the actress, writer and comedian, announced on social media on Thursday that she was canceling an engagement next month at the Kennedy Center, “An Evening With Issa Rae.” She said that tickets would be refunded.“Unfortunately, due to what I believe to be an infringement on the values of an institution that has faithfully celebrated artists of all backgrounds through all mediums, I’ve decided to cancel my appearance at this venue,” she wrote on Instagram.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Trump Show Is Returning. Will It Be Triumph, Tragedy or Farce?

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      On his last show before Election Day, John Oliver allowed himself to dream a little dream. Mr. Oliver, whose “Last Week Tonight” speaks to a mostly left-of-center crowd, spent most of the episode making the case for Kamala Harris. But also, he asked his audience, wouldn’t it be nice, for the first time since 2015, to have the option of simply ignoring Donald J. Trump’s existence? “I want so badly to live in that world!” he said.A week later, Mr. Oliver was back, reporting from a world he found rather less preferable. He devoted the episode to what the Trump victory meant. But first, he gave his audience permission to change the channel.“It is understandable,” he said, “not to want yet another guy in a suit doom-squawking at you.”Mr. Oliver, of course, spoke from a particular political position. But he was also voicing a kind of weariness that goes beyond reproductive issues or deportation policies or the health of democracy. The Trump Era has been a lot, and for a long time. One person has been Topic A, B and C for nearly a decade, throughout popular culture, but most of all on his native medium, TV.On Nov. 5, that might all have ended. It didn’t. How will we — collectively, as a culture — do four more years of this? And what might that even look like?WHEN I SAY THAT Donald Trump, in his first term, was a “TV president,” I mean something different than when we used the phrase for, say, Richard M. Nixon or Bill Clinton.It isn’t just about his having been a politician who “used the medium” to send a message, though he was that. It isn’t just about his having been a reality-TV star and decades-long media gadfly who instinctively thought like television, who craved the same types of conflict and provocation that the cameras do, who was always on, who for all practical purposes was as much TV character as man — though he was that too.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Kennedy Center’s Chairman Won’t Depart After All

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      As the nation’s capital prepares for a second Trump administration, the performing arts center announced that its chairman would not step down in January as planned.The White House was not the only Washington institution planning to welcome new leadership in January. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts had announced that its longtime board chairman, David M. Rubenstein, would step down in January and had appointed a search committee to find a successor.But last month, shortly after the presidential election, the Kennedy Center announced that Mr. Rubenstein, a private equity titan who has led its board of 14 years, would stay on in the position until September 2026.The decision ensures continuity at a moment when the Kennedy Center, like much of Washington, is preparing for a second Trump administration. (On Sunday, President Biden is expected to attend the Kennedy Center Honors as it celebrates Francis Ford Coppola, the Grateful Dead, Bonnie Raitt and Arturo Sandoval; President-elect Donald J. Trump did not attend the ceremonies during his first term.) But it also raises questions about why the center failed to find a new chair.Deborah F. Rutter, the center’s president, said that on Nov. 15 the board’s search committee decided to keep Mr. Rubenstein on in part because the center is in the quiet phase of an endowment campaign, making a leadership transition “really tough.”“We looked at the needs of the Kennedy Center in a variety of different ways moving forward,” she said in an interview. “It is important for us to have somebody who knows the center and who knows and can play the leadership role that we need.”Mr. Rubenstein, a co-founder and co-chairman of the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm, has given the center $111 million over the years. He was initially appointed by former President George W. Bush. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How Will Popular Culture Change in Trump’s Second Term?

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicIn the months leading up to the election, Donald J. Trump appeared on several podcasts with young male audiences. Whether or not they tilted the outcome, they helped increase Trump’s visibility and appeal with a notoriously hard-to-reach demographic. And following his victory, Trump culture moved out of these comfort spaces and began seeping out in unexpected places: Trump danced in N.F.L. end zones, there were TikTok videos of people wearing MAGA hats in New York City.In many ways the cultural legacy of the first Trump administration was more visible in backlash and protest. But it’s possible the second time around, the impact will be an affirmative one.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about the long tail of cultural response to political change, the de-monopolization of centrist broadcast and cable television and the different directions pop culture might take in Trump’s second term.Guest:Joe Coscarelli, The New York Times’s pop music reporterConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica.Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. More

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      Trump’s Win Unfolded on TV as a Muted Reboot

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      Election night on 2024 played like an enervated replay of 2016. Was it a harbinger of how the culture will respond to a second Trump term?If you stayed up into the early morning hours to watch the Blue Wall gradually bleed red and Donald J. Trump give a rambling victory speech surrounded by an entourage, you might have thought that you had seen this show before.You had. But not quite in this way.The long election night unfolded on TV much the way Mr. Trump’s first two did — similar stakes, similar battleground states. But it played very differently. His win in 2016, after a campaign in which he was often covered as an outrageous novelty who would never really win, landed in news studios like an asteroid. In 2020, networks were prepared to fact-check his defiant, false claim of victory after a night that ended up surprisingly close for him.His re-election, on the other hand, was unusual but not unanticipated. It was within the range of possible outcomes suggested by polling, and networks went on the air with the presumption that both he and Vice President Kamala Harris had a solid chance to end up president-elect.So the re-election of a president who had attempted to overturn the results of the last contest — and the return to top billing of America’s most divisive media star — was covered, at least in its first hours, largely as a matter of math.There were seven battleground states, and within them, layers and layers of numbers and variables to unpack. On channel after channel, guys in shirtsleeves with smart-screens — Steve Kornacki, Bill Hemmer, John King — zoomed into America’s electoral anatomy. A CNN map showed in shades of brown which areas of the country had suffered most from recent inflation, a vista of amber waves of pain.The percentages were plentiful but the broader perspective elusive. In the early hours, it could be tough for a channel hopper to get a sense of who was doing well and poorly. On Fox News, Jesse Watters gloated over the “cannonball” splash of Mr. Trump’s win in Florida, while ABC saw early hope for Harris in Pennsylvania.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Why Trump Uses Comics Like Tony Hinchcliffe to Spread His Message

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      Like the former president, these stand-ups loathe the news media, delight in transgression and harbor a deep-seated love of cruel insult jokes.The stand-up of Tony Hinchcliffe, a popular insult comic, became an immediate issue in the presidential campaign on Sunday after his racist lines at a Donald J. Trump rally earned immediate blowback and criticism from, among others, the Democratic vice-presidential candidate, Tim Walz.As Hinchcliffe has done in the past when embroiled in controversy, he doubled down. On X, he wrote that Walz had found the time to “analyze a joke taken out of context to make it seem racist.” Walz didn’t do that. But to the extent that there was a relevant context to Hinchcliffe’s dopey, trolling punchlines, it’s this: They were delivered at a Trump campaign event nine days before the election.There was a time not long ago when people wondered why there weren’t more conservative comedians or why there wasn’t a right-wing version of “The Daily Show.” These questions have always been a little naïve. Comedy has long had a conservative streak, and anyone who ever attended middle school knows that jokes can be as effective at reaffirming the status quo as challenging it.But comedy has become more partisan over the years; late-night TV’s move from neutral Johnny Carson to anti-Trump hosts is only one example. In this election, a forceful new Trump-friendly contingent has emerged, one dominated by male comics, many from Joe Rogan’s orbit. Whereas the biggest names in pop music have come out aggressively for Vice President Kamala Harris, the artists who have provided the most support for Trump have been comedians.Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, have made comedy podcasts a regular stop, aiming to win over young male voters dissatisfied with mainstream news outlets. Just in the past week, Vance has appeared on the podcasts of Tim Dillon, a satirical comic who specializes in booming nihilistic rants, and the oddly poetic, bro-ish comic Theo Von. After much public speculation over whether Trump would be invited to sit down with Rogan — the most popular comedy podcaster and the one who gave a boost to many of these comics — it happened. (Trump has also appeared on podcasts with Von and with the New York standup Andrew Schulz, a podcaster so popular he headlined Madison Square Garden this year.)This doesn’t even count Greg Gutfeld, who as Fox’s highly rated right-wing answer to late night has had Trump on as well.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jon Stewart Extends ‘Daily Show’ Run Through 2025

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      Stewart, who returned to the show in February as a host on Monday nights, originally planned to work through the presidential election.Jon Stewart is sticking around. After nearly nine months with Stewart back at the desk of “The Daily Show,” Comedy Central announced on Monday that he would continue to host the show on Monday nights through 2025.Stewart, who regularly won Emmys while hosting the Comedy Central show full-time from 1999 to 2015, was originally expected to host through the 2024 presidential election.“I’ve truly enjoyed being back working with the incredible team at ‘The Daily Show’ and Comedy Central,” Stewart, 61, said in a statement. “I was really hoping they’d allow me to do every other Monday, but I’ll just have to suck it up.”In addition to continuing his hosting duties one night a week, Stewart will also continue to serve as an executive producer.“Jon’s incisive intellect and sharp wit make him one of the most important voices in political and cultural commentary today,” Chris McCarthy, a senior executive at Paramount, Comedy Central’s parent company, said in the statement. “His ability to cut through the noise and deliver cleareyed insights is exactly what we need.”In September, “The Daily Show” won an Emmy for best talk series. “You have made an old man very happy,” Stewart said in the acceptance speech. “It has really made my Mondays.”A rotating lineup of hosts — including Desi Lydic, Ronny Chieng, Michael Kosta and Jordan Klepper — will continue to anchor the rest of the week. “The Daily Show” has been without a permanent host since Trevor Noah stepped down in late 2022. More