Vice President JD Vance was loudly booed on Thursday night as he attended a National Symphony Orchestra performance at the Kennedy Center, which has been taken over by Donald Trump and his allies.
The audience expressed their displeasure as Vance took his seat along with his wife, Usha, according to video shot by Andrew Roth, global affairs correspondent for The Guardian. Vance can be seen smiling and waving as the audience continued their jeers.
Last month, Trump fired the chairman of the Kennedy Center, David Rubenstein, and ousted the president, Deborah Rutter. Trump also ousted Joe Biden’s appointees to the board of the institution. With the board now filled with his allies, Trump then had himself elected chairman, with one of his loyalists, Ric Grenell, serving as president.
A number of artists have canceled their performances at the Kennedy Center in protest of the takeover. That includes the producers of Hamilton, which dropped plans for a 2026 run of the show.
Grenell commented on the video of the booing of Vance. “The intolerant Left are radicals who can’t even sit in the same room with people that don’t vote like they do. What has happened to today’s Democrats? They are so intolerant,” he wrote.
But Trump has blasted the Kennedy Center for what he considers to be “woke” programming, pointing to an appearance of “drag shows.” After the takeover, the Kennedy Center dropped a concert being planned as part of World Pride celebrations.
