Ric Grenell to ‘Celebrate Christ’ at Kennedy Center, Takes Shot at Deborah Rutter

By Francisco Salazar

Interim Director of the Kennedy Center Ric Grenell has big plans to celebrate Christ in December at the Kennedy Center.

During an interview at the CPAC conference in Washington, D.C., Grenell said, “We have to do the big productions that the masses and the public want to see, we want to have really good programming. So the first thing that we’re doing … you’ve got to be at the Kennedy Center in December because we are doing a big, huge celebration of the birth of Christ at Christmas. How crazy is it to think that we’re going to celebrate Christ at Christmas with a big traditional production to celebrate what we are all celebrating in the world during Christmastime, which is the birth of Christ.”

Grenell also took a swipe at former Director Deborah Rutter noting that she was getting paid $1.3 million dollars and the Kennedy Center had no money. When asked what he was getting paid, Grenell said “way way way less.”

Grenell also noted that he wants to “Make Art Great Again” and “I think the frustration that President Trump had is that the Kennedy Center has no cash on hand, no reserves, and they have been paying for the salaries with the debt reserves, while taking around $40 million of public money. If you’re going to take public money, then you get to have public input.”

The interim director also addressed the Gay’s Men’s Chorus cancelation and said that Trump and he did not have anything to do with the cancelation. Grenell suggested that it was due to ticket sales that the concert was canceled. However, the concert was not until May 21. When asked if he would invite the Gay Men’s Chorus he said that they would have to prove if they could actually sell tickets.

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