White House Insults Local Business, Destroys Decades-Long Tradition

The White House this weekend gloated about the Kennedy Center Honors medals—historically designed by a local business in Washington, D.C.—being redesigned by a multinational luxury brand.

Since his inauguration, President Donald Trump has sought to use the power of the presidency to mold American culture to his will, including at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where he was elected chairman in February after purging the board of trustees.

On Sunday evening, Trump will host the center’s annual honors gala, becoming the first president to do so. He claims to have been “very involved” in selecting the honorees, who were recognized at a medallion ceremony on Saturday.

Since 1978, those medallions were crafted by local artisan James Baturin, who, along with his wife and children, have made more than 250 awards—large, multicolored ribbons with gold name plates—as a family business over the years, according to WUSA9.

That is, until this year.  

On Tuesday, the Kennedy Center unveiled new medallions, created by Tiffany & Co. Somewhat less distinctive than the previous design, the new one features a gold disc hanging from a navy-blue ribbon.

Prior to Saturday’s ceremony, the White House fired off a tweet slighting the mom-and-pop operation that was jilted for a luxury-goods giant. The post celebrated the “new, far more classy design” as a “MASSIVE upgrade from the tacky rainbow sash design of medallions past.”

When a reporter pointed out the storied history of the awards described so sneeringly by Trump’s White House, one social media user quipped: “Taking work from a small family business and outsourcing it to a large corporation? That adds up, yep.”