Trump has declared war -- on the Kennedys

Trump has declared war — on the Kennedys
From Jack and Jackie to Bobby, Ted and Eunice, Trump is on a rampage against the Kennedy legacy

By Jason Kyle Howard
Senior Ideas Editor
Published January 4, 2026 9:00AM (EST)


(Salon) It’s yet another cruel moment in a cruel presidency: Mere hours after Tatiana Schlossberg — daughter of former Ambassador to Australia and Japan Caroline Kennedy, granddaughter of President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis — died at 35 on Dec. 30 from a rare and aggressive form of leukemia, Donald Trump took to Truth Social to attack the Kennedys in deeply personal terms.

“The Kennedy Family have LONG neglected the Kennedy Center, btw,” read one post from a supporter that was shared by the president. “They don’t raise money for it. They never show up. And the only Kennedy who has been there recently is a member of Trump’s cabinet.” Another was more concise and straightforward: “The Trumps have always been supporters of the arts. The Kennedys are supporters of the Kennedys.”

While the president’s posts didn’t mention Schlossberg by name or allude to her death, they were nonetheless telling about his priorities and nature. Trump, who is often incapable of showing grace, is fond of hitting people at their lowest point. In this case, he chose what was undoubtedly the saddest day of Caroline Kennedy’s life — darker even than the assassination of her father and uncle Bobby, than her mother’s untimely passing at 64, than her brother’s tragic death in a plane crash — to celebrate his coup of the Kennedy Center board, which voted to extend his cult of personality by tacking on his name, wholly unearned and unmerited, to the 54-year-old living memorial to the 35th president.

The name change and overhaul of the center’s staff, focus and programming, is just the latest example in a year-long war, intentional or not, that is being waged by Trump against the Kennedy legacy. The Kennedys have a special way of getting under Trump’s skin, and since his return to office a year ago, the president has had the family’s contributions in his sights. .............................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2026/01/04/trump-has-declared-war-on-the-kennedys/