Heather Cox Richardson on Current Events

Heather Cox Richardson covered some of the same ground as my previous post, but with more.

Before noon on Saturday, June 13, Charles M. Floca, whom Trump installed at the head of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, certified to the court that “the Center and its Board have complied with the Court’s order.” They had, he wrote, “[r]emoved all physical signage on the Kennedy Center building and grounds, including the front portico, that purports to rename the Kennedy Center after President Trump or any other individual besides President Kennedy,” updated the website, removed references to Trump from letterhead, promotional materials, and so on, and “[w]ithdrawn any trademark application officially referring to the Kennedy Center as the ‘Trump Kennedy Center’…or any similar formulation.”

What they did not do was take down the tarp workers installed last night around the scaffolding they erected yesterday, hiding the portico wall. Through a crack between the tarp and the wall, photographers caught a few images of letters coming down shortly after 3:00 AM—Cliff Owen of the Associated Press got an iconic shot of a worker loosening the P from the wall—but so far the public has not seen the restored facade. The portico remained shrouded all day.

In a statement, Kennedy Center spokesperson Roma Daravi said that the center was “fully compliant with the court’s directive” and that the board was evaluating “legal options.” Tonight workers were back at the Kennedy Center, where they created passageways in the tarp to make the center’s doors accessible while keeping the wall where Trump had put his name covered.

Last night, while workers were putting up scaffolding at the Kennedy Center, Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fighters held a press conference at the Lincoln Memorial in advance of the UFC cage matches to be held at the White House on Trump’s 80th birthday on Sunday. Trump sent the United States Army Herald Trumpets, the U.S. Army ensemble chiefly responsible for playing the entrance and exit fanfares for the President of the United States, to open the event.

The fighters walked from Lincoln’s statue down the steps of the memorial through the Armed Forces Full Honor Cordon, a pathway formed between two groups made up of sixteen service members in dress uniforms. This is the U.S. military’s highest ceremonial formation, usually reserved for heads of state, foreign dignitaries, senior officials, and funerals for military heroes.

This morning the weigh-in for the UFC fights at the White House also took place at the Lincoln Memorial. Heavyweight fighter Josh Hokit seemed to pretend to throw up, dribbling colored liquid from his mouth. “So what? Maybe I was drinking last night,” Hokit told the media there. “Who wouldn’t be? I’ve got a giant man who wants to knock me out,” he said, referring to his scheduled opponent Derrick Lewis, whom Alex Pattle of Yahoo! Sports identifies as Trump’s favorite fighter. “He has the most knockouts in UFC history.”

Today stunt performer Travis Pastrana performed a backflip on his dirt bike over the UFC octagon fight arena on the South Lawn of the White House. Other riders performed stunts as well. They were filmed on their bikes, flying across the facade of the White House.

On the eve of his 80th birthday, the president posted an image of the Obama Presidential Center as a garbage can surrounded by a homeless encampment. Then he posted an image of himself leaving his trial in Manhattan Criminal Court in 2024, when a jury found him guilty of 34 felony counts, under the caption “Only Trump.” Then he posted an image from 2018 of himself walking with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. Then he posted a picture of himself speaking at a lectern in front of Air Force One while he was campaigning for reelection in August 2020.

Then he posted an AI image of himself on a ship looking out at battleships from different eras, including a wooden sailing vessel, flying the American flag, with fighter jets in formation overhead; the back of his jacket is emblazoned with “COMMANDER IN CHIEF,” and the caption reads: “YOU’RE GETTING DISCOMBOBULATED.”

Then he posted an image of himself on the cover of Fortune magazine from December 8, 1986. And then he posted a black and white image of himself as a younger man in the same era, looking pensive, seated in a chair on an ice rink, with the caption: “Years ago after saving the Wollman Skating Rink in Central Park—Long before I fixed The Reflecting Pool, and everything else in Washington, D.C. including, most importantly, CRIME! President DONALD J. TRUMP”

Tomorrow night, the fighters will enter the ring from the Oval Office. The fight will be carried live on Paramount Plus, for a fee of $8.99 and up.

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Notes:

https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/ufc-white-house-fighter-throws-201255308.html