Colby Hall: ‘Hamilton’ Did Trump a ‘Favor’ By Cancelling Kennedy Center Run

Mediaite founding editor Colby Hall argued producers behind the popular musical Hamilton did President Donald Trump a “favor” and threw him a softball by canceling their Kennedy Center performances in protest.

“Our show simply cannot, in good conscience, participate and be a part of this new culture that is being imposed on the Kennedy Center,” Jeffrey Seller, the show’s producer, said in a statement after the cancellations.

The move was in response to Trump taking control of the Kennedy Center’s board of trustees after taking issue with shows being performed. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt previously said in a statement after Trump took control that the “Kennedy Center learned the hard way that if you go woke, you will go broke.”

Hall, a NewsNation contributor,  argued on Thursday that the protest is “consistent with free speech and constitutional values.”

He said, “Personally, I don’t really have a problem with it. It’s a protest that’s consistent with free speech and constitutional values and conservative, long-standing conservative values. It’s a free market. And if you don’t want to be a part of something that has, you know, apparently been politicized in a way that it hasn’t been before, you know, you sort of just ought not to do it.”

Hall warned that this “publicity stunt” will in no way punish the intended target.

He argued:

“The people that are actually going to be punished by this is no one in the Trump administration and not Trump. It’s the musical theater fans in the D.C. area, which I think are largely left of center. So, you know, there may be sort of unintended consequences of punishing people that would normally be your fans, but, you know, it’s designed to get us talking about it and bring attention to it and here we are.”

Hall denied that art can be “apolitical” as critics and “Archie Bunker” Trump appear to want.

“I don’t think art is necessarily apolitical, right? I think, you know, if you look at most art, it’s often sort of come from the underground and, you know, people that are trying to speak truth to power or say something different or think differently,” Hall argued, adding:

And art typically starts as radical ideas that then later gets accepted, you know, many, many decades and generations later. So, you know, I don’t think that Hamilton is really that much of a sort of — I mean, it’s mainstream a hit because it, you know, there’s a reason why vanilla ice cream is very popular also, like it’s not that edgy. And so I think they made their point.

I’ll also say the idea that Trump inserted himself by taking over the Kennedy Center because he didn’t like the woke programming is, you know, it’s straight up Archie Bunker and [the] popular vote wanted that.

Not much will be made of the controversy, Hall concluded, but he also argued producers may have done Trump a “favor” as he thrives on “wedge” issues.

Hall concluded, “It’s the situation where our political leaders are sort of fighting one another like toddlers. Like he started it. No he did. And I think a lot of people are over it. You know, they have the right to say that they don’t want to do it anymore. And, you know, it’s the sort of wedge issue in conflict that the Trump administration delights in. So they kind of maybe did him a favor.”

Watch above via NewsNation.