The Kennedy Heart simply misplaced one other patron. Whoopi Goldberg introduced on in the present day’s The View that she is going to now not attend Kennedy Heart performances in mild of the Donald Trump board takeover that has prompted a raft of modifications on the venue together with firings and present cancelations.
Throughout in the present day’s Scorching Matters phase of the ABC daytime speak present, Goldberg and the remainder of the panel had been discussing yesterday’s announcement by Hamilton producers Jeffrey Vendor and Lin-Manuel Miranda that they’ve scotched a deliberate 2026 Kennedy Heart engagement of Miranda’s hit musical. The choice, they mentioned, was a response to the “current purge by the Trump Administration of each skilled employees and performing arts occasions at or initially produced by the Kennedy Heart…”
Final night time, Richard Grenell, the Trump-appointed interim government director of the Kennedy Heart, posted a response to the Hamilton producers on X, calling the cancelation “a publicity stunt.”
“The American individuals,” Grenell wrote, “must know that @Lin_Manuel is illiberal of people that don’t agree with him politically. It’s clear he and Sellers [sic] don’t need Republicans going to their reveals. Individuals see you, Lin. Let’s be clear on the info. Vendor and @Lin_Manuel first went to the New York Instances earlier than they got here to the Kennedy Heart with their announcement that they will’t be in the identical room with Republicans. This can be a publicity stunt that may backfire. The Arts are for everybody – not only for the individuals who Lin likes and agrees with.”
(In producer Vendor’s assertion yesterday, he proactively countered Grenell’s argument, writing, “Hamilton was proudly carried out on the Kennedy Heart in 2018 through the first Trump administration. We aren’t appearing towards his administration, however towards the partisan insurance policies of the Kennedy Heart on account of his current takeover.”)
On in the present day’s View, the panel took up the topic, with Republican cohost Alyssa Farah Griffin bemoaning the tip of bipartisanship on the Kennedy Heart and Sunny Hostin noting, “For those who hearth everybody [on the board] that was there, and it was a bipartisan group, and change them with sycophants which might be simply going to toe the Trump line, is that basically the mission of the Kennedy Heart?”
Goldberg had a very robust response to the scenario, saying that Trump’s firing of the Heart’s earlier bipartisan board “was an enormous smack to the humanities, which don’t have a politics.”
Goldberg went on to recommend that Hamilton makes it statements with its nontraditional casting. “Hamilton doesn’t appear to be Hamilton,” she mentioned.
“I’ve no plans to return to the Kennedy Heart till the Kennedy Heart turns into what it was imagined to be – a welcome place for all artists it doesn’t matter what your groove is.”