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J.D. Vance with his wife Usha. There were boos for the couple at a concert. (archive picture)
Bild: Alex Brandon/AP/dpa
The audience at the Kennedy Center made it unmistakably clear to US Vice President J.D. Vance and Second Lady Usha what they thought of them. The scene is just another chapter in Trump's culture war.
US Vice President J.D. Vance and his wife Usha were booed during a concert at the renowned Kennedy Center in the US capital Washington. A video taken by a Guardian journalist shows the Vice President and the Second Lady taking their seats in the gallery. The audience in the hall then began to boo loudly.
The couple were attending a concert by the National Symphony Orchestra. The Washington Post reported that the concert started around half an hour late due to the high security precautions. The video of the incident shows Vance laughing in response to the boos. He waves and takes a sip from a wine glass. According to reports, Vance and his wife Usha watched the entire performance.
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US President Donald Trump brought the Kennedy Center under his control shortly after taking office. He dismissed several members of the board of trustees, took over the chairmanship himself and appointed the former US ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, as president. Trump spoke of a "golden age of art and culture".
The move is an expression of a larger cultural struggle in the USA. Trump justified the move by saying, among other things, that the institution was too "woke". "We didn't like what they were showing," he said. The award-winning musical "Hamilton" had canceled upcoming performances at the Kennedy Center after Trump's takeover.
The newly crowned president of the institution, Grenell, reacted to the incident surrounding Vance on the X platform. Among other things, he wrote: "The intolerant left are radicals who can't even sit in a room with people who don't vote the way they do."
The Kennedy Center's ornate building on the Potomac River traditionally hosts all genres of theater, dance and music. It was named after former President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963).
