US President Donald Trump has made good on his promise to fire the head of the National Archives. The White House announced on Friday (7 February) that it had dismissed Colleen Shogan, but her permanent replacement has yet to be announced. Then on Monday (10 February), Trump announced the dismissal of 18 board members, including the chair, from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC; he also installed Richard Grenell as “interim executive director” in an attempt to align programming at the prestigious cultural centre with Trump’s own political agenda.
Shogan, the first woman to serve as national archivist, confirmed her dismissal in a post on LinkedIn. “This evening, President Trump fired me,” she wrote on 7 February. “No cause or reason was cited. It has been an honor serving as the 11th Archivist of the United States. I have zero regrets—I absolutely did my best every day for the National Archives and the American people.”
William J. Bosanko, deputy archivist of the US, has taken over as acting archivist—but perhaps not for long. A report by Rolling Stone suggests that Trump has a list, compiled by his advisers, of National Archives staff they think should be purged, and Bosanko is allegedly on it.
Shogan's firing appeared to be in retribution for the archives’ role in raising the alarm that Trump had taken classified documents home to Florida with him after his first term as president, although it was Shogan’s predecessor who was head of the National Archives when that occurred. The kerfuffle led to a raid of Mar-a-Lago in August 2022 and Trump’s federal indictment, which was dropped when he won a second presidential term last year. Trump has recently been purging people who took part in prosecuting him from the ranks of the federal government—including Justice Department lawyers and officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
News of a shakeup at the Kennedy Center came straight from the horse’s mouth, when Trump posted his intentions on Truth Social on 7 February: “At my direction, we are going to make the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., GREAT AGAIN,” he wrote, initially naming himself as future board chair and citing drag shows “specifically targeting our youth” as part of the reason for the takeover.
Three days later, again via social media, the president announced that he was appointing Grenell, Trump’s ambassador to Germany during his first term, as “interim executive director”. The Kennedy Center does not have an executive director, causing confusion over the future of its president, Deborah Rutter—who announced last month that she would be stepping down at the end of 2025.
On 12 February, Trump appointed new board members—including people in his cabinet and Usha Vance, wife of the vice president—to replace the ones he has dismissed last week. In turn, the new board voted to fire Rutter, installing Grenell in her place as interim president, and to make Trump chairman. As a result of this change in leadership, a number of world-renowned artists broke their ties with the Kennedy Center, including the opera star Renée Fleming, the television producer Shonda Rhimes and the musician Ben Folds.
The Kennedy Center is partially funded by the federal government, and presidents appoint its board of trustees to serve six-year terms. All 18 dismissed board members—among them the award-winning musician Jon Batiste—had been appointed by former president Joe Biden; the 17 board members left on the roster were all Trump appointees.
Like the National Archives, the Kennedy Center is a nonpartisan establishment. Among its many performances throughout the year, it hosts the National Symphony Orchestra, the Washington National Opera and the Washington Ballet. Trump recently admitted that he has never attended a performance at the Kennedy Center.