President Donald Trump has argued that his name belongs on the Kennedy Center because his is the one pursuing its renovation — even though the building stands as a memorial to a different president. But tax records reviewed by Zeteo indicate that the nonprofit's revenue took a steep downturn after Trump entered the White House roughly two years ago.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., is the nation's designated cultural center — a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy that operates as a nonprofit funded through program revenue, donations, grants, and federal appropriations, the same revenue streams itemized in the new filing.

Trump has repeatedly described the center as "a mess," saying that "for many years [it] has lost tens of millions of dollars, even hundreds of of dollars. It's a loser financially" (video). He has also argued that "for me to go and fix it, I'm the one capable of fixing it and then have to subsidize it for years to come, because you will lose with the Kennedy Center, they were losing hundreds of millions of dollars and sometimes hundreds of billions, this is before I got involved."

Zeteo requested the Kennedy Center's 2025 tax return, filed last month. The document is an IRS Form 990, the annual information return that tax-exempt organizations file with the IRS, and it covers the center's fiscal year through Sept. 30, 2025. According to the outlet, the figures show Trump "is both lying about previous losses and hiding his own deliberate financial assault."

"The tax return does not show the Kennedy Center perpetually losing 'hundreds of millions' or 'sometimes hundreds of billions.' But it confirms issues, particularly around Trump's takeover," wrote Zeteo reporters Martin Pengelly and Andrew Perez. "As of Sept. 30, 2025, the Kennedy Center had record net assets of $778 million. The center reported $517 million in revenue last year, and $210 million in revenue less expenses."

The return did, however, list $48 million in "bad debt expense," a category that generally reflects revenue a nonprofit anticipated but never collected.

"Program revenue declined by $16 million and pledges and grants declined by $30 million in the seven or so months after Trump began his Kennedy Center takeover," Zeteo reported. "That was before he added his name to the building, a move that reportedly caused ticket sales and donations to plunge much further." Those two line items — earned from performances, donors, and grant-makers rather than the federal Treasury — track the day-to-day financial health of an arts institution.

"The Kennedy Center made a $40 million profit in 2024. Then he demanded his name on the building, replaced the board and management with his lackeys and it's bankrupt. The same things happen to everything he touches," former Fox Sports host Robert Lusetich wrote in a post on X. Trump began his takeover of the center early in his second term, when he installed a new board that elected him its chairman and named new leadership for the institution.

According to the filing, the center's budget would have slipped into the red without $257 million in untapped congressional appropriations provided under Trump's Big Beautiful Bill — federal money that kept the institution's ledger in the black. "Interestingly, the tax return says that as of Sept. 30, 2025, roughly $330 million in federal appropriations – $310 million allotted for capital repair and restoration, and $20 million for operations and management – were being 'held by [the] U.S. Treasury,'" Zeteo added. Because those funds were still held by the Treasury rather than disbursed, the approved support had not yet reached the center's own accounts.

Taken together, Zeteo reports, the numbers indicate that Trump's depiction of the center's finances as perilous may now be accurate — but only because of the deterioration that followed his return to office for a second term. The outlet said it contacted the White House and the Treasury Department for details about the tax return; "oddly enough, the administration didn't answer." With no public response, the figures remain unaddressed, and any fuller picture of the reported post-naming plunge in ticket sales and donations will rest on the center's future financial disclosures.

Trump, meanwhile, has repeated his threat that if he cannot put his name on Kennedy's memorial, the building might have to be "ripped down," in his words. "Then, that night, in a moment so Trumpian as to be almost perfectly absurd, the president was photographed on Air Force One, looking at a poster board headlined 'Kennedy Center DEMOLISHED,'" Zeteo reported. "Next to Trump was Bill Pulte, the loyal attack dog Trump temporarily installed as director of national intelligence."

This article is based on Alternet's report on Zeteo's review of the Kennedy Center's 2025 tax filing.