Trump name added to Kennedy Center to reflect name change
Construction workers added President Donald Trump’s name to the Kennedy Center to reflect the center’s name change.
When it comes to the Trump-Kennedy Center, one comedian might have been a step ahead of the Trump administration.
Comedy writer Toby Morton, who has worked on “Mad TV” and “South Park,” told The Washington Post in an interview published Dec. 20 that he’d purchased the “trumpkennedycenter.org” and “trumpkennedycenter.com” domains back in August in anticipation of President Donald Trump renaming the nation’s performing arts center. Though Morton owns the domains, the websites have not yet gone live.
In an email to USA TODAY on Dec. 21, Morton confirmed “both domains are currently parked through GoDaddy” and that the URLs currently direct to pages that are “automatically generated by their parking service, which injects random syndicated content until a site is live.”
Morton added that it “isn’t intentional content on my part and will disappear once the domains are pointed to active hosting.”
Trump-Kennedy Center parody website will focus on ‘Trump’s narcissism’
Morton also shared that the response to the news of his domains has been “overwhelmingly positive.”
“I’ve received a large number of messages from creatives, writers, designers, and performers offering to contribute and help elevate what comes next,” he wrote. “That enthusiasm is shaping the direction of the upcoming site, which will focus squarely on Trump’s narcissism, branding impulses, and the broader cultural implications of attaching his name to institutions that were meant to be civic, not personal.”
Morton is known for acquiring domain names that sound legitimate, only for the domains to lead to webpages that impersonate public figures. He has parodied dozens of politicians, leaders, and organizations, such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Andrew Cuomo, Joel Osteen, and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
Morton, who describes himself on Instagram as the “creator of anti-fascist websites,” told The Post that the domains will “reflect the absurdity of the moment,” adding: “Some things are truly hard to parody, though.”
USA TODAY reached out to the White House and the Trump-Kennedy Center for comment.
The Kennedy Center’s board of trustees recently voted on Dec. 18 to rename the music, arts, and cultural institution the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said this was “because of the unbelievable work President Trump has done over the last year in saving the building. Not only from the standpoint of its reconstruction, but also financially, and its reputation.”
As of now, the center’s website remains kennedy-center.org, though Trump’s name is prominently displayed at the top of the site. It’s unclear whether there are any plans to change the domain name.
On Instagram, Morton posted that “a few longtime heroes of mine are quietly on board now” after news of his domain purchases.
“Maybe don’t mess with an institution like The Kennedy Center? The support is growing,” he wrote. “Watch this space.”
Contributing: Joey Garrison, USA TODAY