Ben Folds Slams Trump’s Kennedy Center Takeover Before Congress: ‘When You Politicize Art, You’ve Got Propaganda’

A congressional forum was held Tuesday (July 21) to call attention to Donald Trump‘s various “vanity projects,” one of which — the unprecedented 2025 overhaul of the Kennedy Center — Ben Folds was on hand to discuss.

During his turn to speak before lawmakers in the hearing presided over by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the singer/songwriter shared testimony of the changes he witnessed when he was still artistic advisor to the cultural institution’s National Symphony Orchestra. Ever since Trump booted a number of board members and took the role of chairman for himself in February 2025, the Kennedy Center has become a “hyper-politicized environment,” according to Folds.

“I never heard politics discussed in any meetings or gatherings at the center,” he recalled of his tenure leading up to Trump’s takeover, noting that the organization remained apolitical even during the twice-impeached POTUS’ first tenure in 2016-2020. “Everyone involved, including the Trump board, knew we were there to create, educate and showcase art for all Americans, not to further a political agenda.”

“I think most of us understand that when you politicize art, you’ve got propaganda,” he continued.

Folds went on to detail how Trump’s actions negatively affected the center’s reputation and mission. For one, he pointed out that artists can no longer accept or decline invitations to perform at the venue without it coming across as either an endorsement or protest of the president’s administration.

He also said that he “could not trust” that the artists he booked to play at the Kennedy Center “would be safe from retribution if they said or sung something that might displease the president or his political allies. “For this reason, with great sadness, I had no choice but to resign,” he added.

Further, Folds also amplified the investigation into Yasmin Levy’s performance at the center in September. The singer had criticized the board’s DEI and programming changes in an email exchange with then-interim executive director Richard Grenell, who was selected for the job by Trump. When it came time for her performance — which she went through with in solidarity with the Kennedy Center’s staff and union — she was booed by hecklers that Grennell’s executive vp, Rick Loughery, had allegedly paid to harass her.

“The takeover hobbled the Kennedy Center, broke its once-proven successful business model and disrespected its original core mission,” Folds said conclusively. “I can only hope your concerns can find their way to the hearts and minds of your colleagues on the other side of the aisle, who seem absent today.”

The Kennedy Center was just one of many issues covered at the forum, which came in response to “Trump’s vanity projects [that] have wasted hundreds of millions of your hard-earned tax dollars,” according to a description. Testifiers such as Rep. Joyce Beatty and National Parks Conservation manager of veterans programs Jimi Shaughnessy, as well as Public Citizen democracy advocate Jon Gollinger, also shared observations about Trump’s extravagant spending on renovating parts of the White House, making over the Lincoln Memorial’s reflecting pool and constructing a large triumphal arch in Washington, D.C.

Folds had served as the NSO’s artistic advisor for nearly a decade before stepping down in February 2025, around which time several acts denounced Trump for taking control over the Kennedy Center and publicly canceled planned concerts at the venue. This past May, a federal judge ordered that Trump could not add his name to the Kennedy Center’s title and called for the immediate removal of any reference to him on the building’s signage.

Watch the full hearing below.