Grenell fires 5 Kennedy Center executives and reveals severe financial crisis: 'They don't have any cash on hand'

The acting director of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Richard Grenell, announced via his X account that the cultural complex is experiencing such a severe financial crisis that it does not even have cash on hand or financial reserves. Grenell, who until a couple of weeks ago was U.S. President Donald Trump's envoy for special missions, revealed this fact after firing 5 of its top executives, who represented an expenditure of $2.4 million dollars in salaries. Grenell also noted that the center is facing a delicate deferred maintenance crisis and that it has had to draw on its own reserves over the past few months to maintain its functions.

"I was briefed today by the CFO of the Kennedy Center on its financial situation. She told me there is ZERO cash on hand. And ZERO in reserves. And the deferred maintenance is a crisis. For the past months they've been digging into the DEBT RESERVES. We must fix this great institution. The people working hard at the Nation's premier performing arts center deserve better - and so do all Americans," Grenell wrote on his X account.

A culturally important institution

Grenell, who is one of Trump's loyal political figures and was the director of U.S. National Intelligence during his first administration, was chosen by the president to take the reins of the Kennedy Center at a time when the Republican administration is seeking to restore some of the most important institutions and steer them away from the extremist political agendas they have embraced in recent years.

The prestigious cultural center, which receives federal funding, is one of the most important arts venues in the United States and has enjoyed bipartisan support over the past several decades. During his first stint in the White House, Trump championed the inclusion of $25 million in funding for the John F. Kennedy Center in one of his economic aid packages aimed at workers and small businesses affected by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Republican leader presented himself as one of the greatest defenders of the arts in the United States, arguing that the cultural center deserved to receive this assistance due to the difficulties they had during this period in holding events, taking into account that local authorities banned large crowds as part of their quarantine plans.