CNN Anchors Amused At Trump ‘Slip’ About Renaming Kennedy Center — After Himself

CNN anchors Wolf Blitzer and Pamela Brown were visibly amused that President Donald Trump “slipped” and revealed a desire to rename the Kennedy Center after himself — to “The Trump Kennedy Center.”

During a signing ceremony for a peace agreement between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Trump punctuated one riff with an obviously feigned Freudian slip about the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, which Trump took over this year:

And you have a big event on Friday at the Trump Kennedy Center.

Oh, excuse me. At the Kennedy Center.

(LAUGHTER)

Pardon me. I made such a terrible mistake, Marco. Uh at the Kennedy Center.

On Friday’s edition of CNN’s The Situation Room, both co-anchors and White House correspondent Kristen Holmes evinced astonishment at the “slip” — made during a visit to a different building that was just renamed for Trump:

WOLF BLITZER: New this morning, you heard that President Trump will be over at the Kennedy Center here in Washington today for the FIFA World Cup draw.

But there’s certainly more news about the Kennedy Center that we’re monitoring right now. The president let it be known, he slipped that he intends to rename the cultural landmark here in Washington the Trump-Kennedy Center.

PAMELA BROWN: It all comes as a president is on a tear, literally recasting, renaming and rebuilding some of Washington’s most revered institutions, including, of course, the White House itself.

So let’s talk about all of this with senior White House correspondent Kristen Holmes here in THE SITUATION ROOM with us.

I want to start with that not-so-subtle hint about changing the name of the Kennedy Center.

KRISTEN HOLMES: Yes, I mean, look, in any other White House, this might be considered a joke or something kind of tongue in cheek.

But when it comes to President Trump, we’re literally seeing him rename buildings. He was saying those remarks while he was sitting in the former Institute of Peace, now the Donald Trump U.S. Institute of Peace, which he renamed, saying essentially that he wants to rename it to the Trump-Kennedy Center, and then laughing saying, oh, no, it’s the — it’s the Kennedy Center. Oh, that was a mistake there.

But this comes as President Trump has been really fixated on the Kennedy Center. I know from sources that, every single time he’s there, which actually is quite a bit — he goes for different events, not actual Kennedy Center events, but he’s held press conferences there, et cetera.

That he asks for a tour. He asks what renovations they’re doing. We know that they had put aside $250 million in that budget bill for renovations of the Kennedy Center. That was something that President Trump himself wanted.

And I think we have him here. This is him arriving to the Kennedy Center-right now for that FIFA World Cup draw. And they’re going to be pouring money into the Kennedy Center. They have plans for new seating, new carpeting. They have new pillars that they have painted over.

And Trump has really wanted a different kind of entertainment center in D.C. So it’s not that surprising that he’d also want to potentially name it after himself.

BROWN: Yes, he likes to put his name on buildings.

HOLMES: He does.

BROWN: Yes.

BLITZER: The Trump-Kennedy Center, not the Kennedy-Trump Center, the Trump-Kennedy Center.

(CROSSTALK)

HOLMES: He said the Trump-Kennedy Center, yes.

BLITZER: We will see if that happens.

Watch above via CNN’s The Situation Room.

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