Abby Phillip Turns the Tables After Scott Jennings Defends Trump Renaming Kennedy Center for Himself: ‘I’m Glad You Said That, Because…’
Michael Luciano
Sat, December 27, 2025 at 4:43 AM UTC
2 min read
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CNN’s Abby Phillip caught Scott Jennings a bit off-guard on Friday’s CNN NewsNight, after the Republican strategist defended President Donald Trump’s renaming of the Kennedy Center for himself.
Last week, Trump announced that the board of the Kennedy Center, which he chairs and has stocked with loyalists such as his Attorney General Pam Bondi, his Chief-of-Staff Susie Wiles, and Fox News host Laura Ingraham, had voted to rename the cultural venue to the Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, or the Trump-Kennedy Center for brevity’s sake. The day after the announcement, Trump’s name was put on the building.
On NewsNight, Phillip asked Jennings about the precedent that the renaming sets:
PHILLIP: What happens when the next Democratic president just decides, you know, “We’re gonna call it the Obama-Lincoln Memorial? We’re just gonna slap, you know, Bill Clinton’s name on something, anything arbitrarily.” Are you guys gonna be cool with that?”
JENNINGS: So you’re saying a Democrat would put Obama’s name on a statue that isn’t of him? That would make them look like the stupidest person that ever lived.
PHILLIP: Well, I’m glad you said that, because the Kennedy Center is literally a congressionally-named memorial.
JENNINGS: It’s not a statue.
PHILLIP: It’s not a statue, but it is a memorial to President John F. Kennedy in the same way that the Lincoln Memorial is a memorial to President Lincoln,” Phillip responded.
JENNINGS: But it’s a statue. It has a likeness.
PHILLIP: So are you ready for a Democratic president to slap their name–
JENNINGS: Yep, I am.
PHILLIP: –arbitrarily on any.
JENNINGS: I’m ready for Democrats to misname every statue in America. I think, to prove your point, I think that would be great for their party. Change all the names on the statues.
In 1964, Congress named the center for JFK, who was assassinated the previous year. The congressional resolution that did so said that “the living memorial to be named in his honor by this joint resolution shall be the sole national monument to his memory within the city of Washington and its environs.”
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This month, Trump also announced a new class of battleships that will be named for him. The president said he will even be involved in their design because “I’m a very aesthetic person.”
Watch above via CNN.
The post Abby Phillip Turns the Tables After Scott Jennings Defends Trump Renaming Kennedy Center for Himself: ‘I’m Glad You Said That, Because…’ first appeared on Mediaite.