Richard Grenell attends the world premiere of Amazon MGM Studios’ Melania on the Kennedy Heart in Washington, DC, on January 29, 2026.
ALEX WROBLEWSKI/AFP by way of Getty Photographs/AFP
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ALEX WROBLEWSKI/AFP by way of Getty Photographs/AFP
President Trump introduced Friday afternoon on his Reality Social platform that Richard Grenell, the previous U.S. ambassador to Germany, is leaving his place on the head of the Kennedy Heart earlier than it closes for scheduled renovations in July.
Trump,, who has been chairman of the Kennedy Heart since Feb. 2025, stated that he’s selling Matt Floca, the middle’s present vp of operations, to chief working officer and govt director. Grenell’s departure comes about three months earlier than the Kennedy Heart is ready to shut for renovations, which President Trump has stated would take two years.
As NPR reported final month, the renovations as detailed in an inner memo embody some facility repairs and beauty adjustments, together with to public areas that had been simply renovated two years in the past. In his Reality Social posting Friday, the president repeated his declare that the renovations shall be a “full reconstruction” of the advanced.
Grenell, who served as the middle’s president, has a status as a Trump loyalist and has regularly deplored what he has known as “leftist activists” within the arts. Throughout Grenell’s tenure, which started as interim govt director in Feb. 2025, the Kennedy Heart has skilled intense tumult. Quite a few outstanding artists have canceled their performances and displays. One of many heart’s core tenants, the Washington Nationwide Opera, severed its relationship with the Kennedy Heart final month. Many longtime employees members have departed. Ticket gross sales have plummeted.
Grenell, who had no prior arts administration expertise previous to his Kennedy Heart appointment, informed PBS NewsHour in January, “We can not have arts establishments that lose cash.” He insisted that productions on the Kennedy Heart wanted to be income turbines or not less than revenue-neutral – a non-starter within the performing arts, by which massive legacy establishments usually rely upon a stability of earned income, philanthropic giving and a few quantity of presidency grants.
Final November, Senate Democrats opened an investigation towards Grenell, accusing him and the present Kennedy Heart management of cronyism and corruption, citing “thousands and thousands in misplaced income, luxurious spending and preferential remedy for Trump allies.” Grenell denied the allegations in an open letter posted to social media on the official Kennedy Heart accounts, which has since been eliminated.
In his Reality Social publish, President Trump praised Grenell, writing: “Ric Grenell has finished a superb job in serving to to coordinate numerous components of the Heart in the course of the transition interval, and I need to thank him for the excellent work he has finished.”
Information of his departure was first reported Friday by Axios.
