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Tag: Presidential Transition (US)

  • Senators Grill Dr. Oz on Medicaid Cuts and Medicare Changes

    Senators Grill Dr. Oz on Medicaid Cuts and Medicare Changes


    In a hearing on Friday, senators pressed Dr. Mehmet Oz, the TV celebrity nominated to head Medicare and Medicaid, on Republican-led proposals that would significantly affect the health care coverage for nearly half of all Americans.

    At his confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee, Dr. Oz bantered with senators in a friendly atmosphere, joking about basketball and allegiances to college teams. He largely escaped tough questions from either side of the aisle, displaying his on-air charm as he deflected Democrats’ most pointed concerns about potentially radical changes in health coverage for not only those 65 and older but also for poor children.

    Many senators seemed distracted by the fierce debate over the Republicans’ budget deal to avert a government shutdown, and they dashed in and out of Dr. Oz’s hearing. But he is poised to sail through the Senate for confirmation as the next administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, an agency with $1.5 trillion in spending.

    Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, made a big deal of his financial conflicts before the hearing. But at the session, she did not press him on those issues. Instead, she focused on his views about whether private Medicare plans are overcharging the government, an area where she and Dr. Oz seemed to agree on the need to tackle potential fraud and waste.

    Throughout the hearing, he displayed a facile knowledge of a variety of relevant agency issues, although he repeatedly reverted to stock answers that he would need to study the topic at hand more.

    Several lawmakers, mainly Democrats, tried to force Dr. Oz to express his views on the Trump administration’s goals to cut back on health care costs and agency budgets, but he repeatedly sidestepped those minefields.

    “It is our patriotic duty to be healthy,” he told senators. “It costs a lot of money to take care of sick people who are sick because of lifestyle choices.”

    This refrain is in line with the Make America Healthy Again movement championed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the new secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, and Dr. Oz’s soon-to-be boss if he is confirmed.

    Introductory remarks from Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, held out an initial promise of some challenging questions. He accused Dr. Oz of dodging almost $500,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes in recent years by using a tax exemption related to limited partnerships, something Democrats concluded after reviewing Dr. Oz’s tax returns. But there were no follow up questions on it.

    Mr. Wyden also raised the specter that he was going to grill Dr. Oz on his connection to TZ Insurance Solutions, a for-profit company that sells Medicare Advantage plans to older Americans. Dr. Oz has been a relentless promoter of these private plans, which have been criticized by lawmakers and regulators for systemic overbilling and denying patients care, on his show and YouTube channel.

    Dr. Oz, 64, is also a registered broker for TZ Insurance in states across the country, according to a recent investigation into his finances by The New York Times. Again, Mr. Wyden flagged the issue and did not follow up.

    Despite concerns by Democrats that Dr. Oz would most likely roll back some of the rules meant to rein in the plans, he instead committed to strong oversight. He acknowledged that some of the brokers now selling these plans were “churning policies,” switching people from one plan to another, regardless of whether the change in coverage benefited them.

    “Part of this is just recognizing there’s a new sheriff in town,” Dr. Oz said. “We actually have to go after places and areas where we’re not managing the American people’s money well.”

    Several times in the hearing, Dr. Oz addressed bipartisan concerns over whether Medicare Advantage plans are overpaid. In response to questions from a fellow physician, Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, Dr. Oz mentioned a study suggesting the federal government spends more on the private alternative to Medicare than the government-run program. “It’s upside down,” he said.

    “We should examine whether some of the money should be reimbursed to the American people,” Dr. Oz said.

    He also expressed interest in solving some of the bipartisan concern over insurers’ use of prior authorization for approving medical procedures by reducing the number of services that would be subject to review.

    Democrats seemed most frustrated by Dr. Oz’s stance toward Medicaid, the state-federal program that covers 72 million low-income Americans. “All my colleagues want to know, are you going to cut Medicaid?” asked Senator Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington.

    But Dr. Oz, who has not spoken much about the program he would also oversee as head of the agency, did not answer directly. He said he did not know the details of the Republican budget discussions, in which lawmakers are looking at hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts that could result in people’s loss of coverage as it became more difficult to enroll and states had to shoulder more of the burden.

    When questioned by Senator Raphael Warnock, Democrat of Georgia, about Republican efforts to add burdensome monthly paperwork for some people to show they should get benefits, Dr. Oz said he favored the work requirements that Republicans want to limit eligibility. But he agreed with the senator about making sure people who should be eligible for Medicaid were not cut off.

    There were other subjects senators seemed to veer away from. For instance, Dr. Oz has made tens of millions of dollars over the years promoting dietary supplements, often without any mention of his financial interest. He has been paid by numerous medical and health firms for showcasing their products. Many of those companies would be affected by any decisions he would make as the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and many already benefit from agency funding.

    Senator Maggie Hassan, Democrat of New Hampshire, asked him to put a dollar figure on exactly what he has made from promoting supplements on his daytime TV show. He said he was not paid anything. He started to explain that Sony Pictures distributed the show, and that it was the entity paid by these companies (which in turn paid him), but he was cut off. Ultimately, Ms. Hassan was unable to extract anything meaningful from him and moved on.

    In the hearing, Mr. Wyden pressed Dr. Oz about the access granted to Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency to Americans’ private medical information. Mr. Wyden raised concerns about the need to protect people’s privacy given the department’s potential ability to view personal health and medical data. Despite his repeated questions, he said, the Trump administration had so far not addressed those concerns. Surprisingly, Dr. Oz said he had no discussions with the administration about what Mr. Musk’s team was doing as it inspected agency information, but he promised to “address what is going on.”

    The measles outbreak in Texas and New Mexico has heightened concerns and leveled significant criticism at the response by Mr. Kennedy and the Trump administration. Senator Ben Ray Luján, Democrat of New Mexico, asked Dr. Oz whether he believed the measles vaccine was safe. Dr. Oz said he did, but when the senator followed up by asking whether it was effective, Dr. Oz stepped back and said that judging individual vaccines and their recommendations for use would not be under his purview but under that of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    “My job, if confirmed, is to make sure we pay for those vaccines,” he said.



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  • Dr. Oz to Face Pointed Questions on Medicare and Medicaid Before Senate Panel

    Dr. Oz to Face Pointed Questions on Medicare and Medicaid Before Senate Panel


    Dr. Mehmet Oz, the TV celebrity doctor, is expected to face a tense confirmation hearing on Friday, with Democratic senators planning to question how he would oversee Medicare and Medicaid now that Republicans and the Trump administration are weighing significant changes affecting millions of Americans.

    Among the possible plans being considered by Republican lawmakers and President Trump are severe reductions to health insurance coverage for low-income people and a greater shift toward private plans for older Americans.

    Dr. Oz, 64, a cardiothoracic surgeon who rose to fame through his successful daytime show, appears poised to secure confirmation by the full Senate.

    His confirmation hearing is among the last of the Trump nominees whose agencies fall under the jurisdiction of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s health secretary. It immediately follows Mr. Trump’s decision on Thursday to withdraw the nomination of Dr. Dave Weldon to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Weldon’s long-held views against certain vaccines weakened his chances for confirmation.

    Given that older Americans are advised to receive certain vaccines because they are among the most vulnerable for illnesses like Covid, the flu and pneumonia, it’s possible that Dr. Oz’s positions on immunization will also be of interest to the Senate panel reviewing his qualifications.

    In addition, some of the Senate Finance Committee members are likely to grill Dr. Oz about his myriad financial ties, many of which would pose troubling conflicts of interest if he were to lead the agency.

    He has made tens of millions of dollars pitching dietary supplements and other products on television and social media, and many of the companies he has connections to could benefit from his confirmation.

    In an attempt to mitigate some of his conflicts, in February he announced that, if confirmed, he would sell his interest in more than 70 companies and investment funds, including UnitedHealth Group, HCA Healthcare and Amazon, which now has significant health care ventures. His business and family holdings are valued in the neighborhood of roughly $90-million to $335 million, according to a recent regulatory filing.

    Senate Democrats are expected to home in on Dr. Oz’s vocal support of the controversial private insurance plans for older Americans known as Medicare Advantage. The insurers operating these plans have come under intense criticism, accused of overcharging the government and denying patients necessary care. Dr. Oz has also had close ties to companies selling the plans, many of which have also been accused of overly aggressive marketing tactics.

    As administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Dr. Oz would determine just how closely the agency would monitor the Medicare Advantage industry. He could also encourage people to enroll in private plans instead of the traditional government-run program. Medicare now covers roughly 68 million people, with slightly more than half now receiving insurance through Medicare Advantage plans. Nearly seven million of those on Medicare are under 65.

    Little is known about Dr. Oz’s views on Medicaid, the vast state-federal program that provides coverage to 72 million low-income and disabled Americans, some of whom are also on Medicare. Republicans in Congress are eyeing the program to potentially find as much as $880 billion in cuts, which could result in far fewer people being eligible for health coverage and affect how much individual states must contribute.

    Senate Democrats also want answers about his recent income tax filings, focusing on whether he paid the required amount for Medicare taxes, according to a memo from committee staff reviewed by The New York Times.

    “The Office of Government Ethics has conducted an extensive review of Dr. Oz’s finances as part of the regular vetting process,” Christopher Krepich, his spokesman, said.

    The ethics office informed the Senate that “any potential conflicts have been resolved and he is in compliance with the law,” Mr. Krepich added.

    But Senator Elizabeth Warren, the Democrat from Massachusetts, sent a 28-page letter to Dr. Oz on Thursday, pointedly demanding that he provide answers about his positions and potential conflicts.

    “The agency deserves a leader that is willing to put the interests of patients, providers and taxpayers first — not an individual that seeks to privatize those programs and has spent much of his career profiting from entities that are squeezing every last health care dollar out of patients and taxpayers,” she said.



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  • White House Withdraws Nominee for C.D.C. Director

    White House Withdraws Nominee for C.D.C. Director


    The White House has decided to withdraw the nomination of its pick to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Dave Weldon, a Republican former congressman who was to have appeared at a Senate confirmation hearing Thursday morning.

    Reached by phone, Dr. Weldon, who learned of the decision last night, said he had been told by a White House official that “they didn’t have the votes to confirm” his nomination.

    Dr. Weldon, 71, was scheduled to appear before the Senate health committee on Thursday at 10 a.m., the first time an agency director would have been subject to the confirmation process. The decision to withdraw the nomination was first reported by Axios.

    Dr. Weldon said he had been excited by the prospect of serving his country again and helping to restore the public’s confidence in the C.D.C.

    He said he had also been looking forward to working with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the new health secretary, on the MAHA, or Make America Healthy Again, agenda to curtail chronic diseases among Americans.

    “It is a shock, but, you know, in some ways, it’s relief,” Dr. Weldon said. “Government jobs demand a lot of you, and if God doesn’t want me in it, I’m fine with that.”

    The Senate Committee on Health Education, Labor and Pensions canceled Dr. Weldon’s hearing. But the panel voted to advance to the full Senate two other health nominees, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to lead the National Institutes of Health and Dr. Martin Makary to head the Food and Drug Administration.

    (The hearing for Dr. Mehmet Oz, the nominee to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, is scheduled for Friday.)

    Dr. Weldon was perhaps the least known of the men nominated to lead major agencies at the Department of Health and Human Services. But he was the one aligned most closely with Mr. Kennedy.

    The two men have been friends for 25 years. The health secretary has cited Dr. Weldon’s criticisms of the C.D.C. along with his own. Mr. Kennedy is “very upset” at the decision to withdraw Dr. Weldon for consideration as C.D.C. director, Dr. Weldon said.

    “I’m going to get on an airplane at 11 o’clock and I’m going to go home and I’m going to see patients on Monday,” he said. “I’ll make much more money staying in my medical practice.”

    His hearing was set to take place amid significant measles outbreaks in Texas and New Mexico, which have infected more than 250 people and claimed two lives; a flu season that led to record numbers of hospitalizations; and the potential for a bird flu epidemic.

    He had repeatedly questioned the safety of the measles vaccine and criticized the C.D.C. for not doing enough to prove that vaccines are safe.

    While in Congress, Dr. Weldon pushed to move the vaccine safety office away from C.D.C. control, saying the agency had a conflict of interest because it also purchases and promotes vaccines. He is also a staunch opponent of abortion.

    Dr. Weldon served in Congress for 14 years, from 1995 to 2009. His signature legislative accomplishment was the Weldon Amendment, which bars health agencies from discriminating against hospitals or health insurance plans that choose not to provide or pay for abortions.

    Like Mr. Kennedy, he had questioned the need to immunize children against hepatitis B, describing it as primarily a sexually transmitted disease afflicting adults.

    He also argued that abstinence is the most effective way to curb sexually transmitted infections. Cases have soared in recent years and only began to show signs of a possible downturn in 2023.

    In an interview with The New York Times in late November, Dr. Weldon said that he had worked “to get the mercury out of the childhood vaccines,” but described himself as a supporter of vaccination.

    Both his adult children are fully immunized, he said. As a doctor in coastal Florida, he prescribes thousands of doses of flu and other vaccines to his patients.

    “I’ve been described as anti-vaccine,” Dr. Weldon said, but added: “I give shots. I believe in vaccination.”

    Apart from a handful of tough questions from the committee’s chair, Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, comments from members have largely fallen along partisan lines. Dr. Weldon’s hearing was not expected to be different.



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  • RFK Jr. Rattles Food Companies With Vow to Rid Food of Artificial Dyes

    RFK Jr. Rattles Food Companies With Vow to Rid Food of Artificial Dyes


    In his first meeting with top executives from PepsiCo, W.K. Kellogg, General Mills and other large companies, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, bluntly told them that a top priority would be eliminating artificial dyes from the nation’s food supply.

    At the Monday meeting, Mr. Kennedy emphasized that it was a “strong desire and urgent priority” of the new Trump administration to rid the food system of artificial colorings.

    In addition, he warned the companies that they should anticipate significant change as a result of his quest for “getting the worst ingredients out” of food, according to a letter from the Consumer Brands Association, a trade group. The Times reviewed a copy that was sent to the group’s members after the meeting.

    And while Mr. Kennedy said in the meeting that he wanted to work with the industry, he also “made clear his intention to take action unless the industry is willing to be proactive with solutions,” the association wrote.

    “But to underscore, decision time is imminent,” Melissa Hockstad, who attended the meeting and is the group’s president, wrote in the letter.

    Later on Monday, Mr. Kennedy issued a directive that would also affect food companies nationwide. He ordered the Food and Drug Administration to revise a longstanding policy that allowed companies — independent of any regulatory review — to decide that a new ingredient in the food supply was safe. Put in place decades ago, the policy was aimed at ingredients like vinegar or salt that are widely considered to be well-understood, and benign. But the designation, known as GRAS, or “generally recognized as safe,” has since grown to include a far broader array of natural and synthetic additives.

    Mr. Kennedy had vowed to upend the food system as a way to address growing rates of chronic disease and other health concerns even before his appointment as the head of the Department of Health and Human Services. He now oversees the F.D.A., the federal regulator for about 80 percent of the nation’s food supply.

    Many food companies rely on artificial dyes to make breakfast cereals and candies dazzling shades of pink and blue, for instance, or beverages neon orange. Some have already tried to adapt natural ingredients, like carrot or blueberry juice, for coloring, particularly for products sold in international markets, like Canada. But the companies have said that consumer demand had weakened in the United States because of dissatisfaction with less appealing or vivid colors in snacks and drinks.

    Steven Williams, the chief executive of PepsiCo’s North America division, attended the meeting with Mr. Kennedy, but the company said he would not comment. In an email, a PepsiCo spokesperson said that the company viewed the meeting as a “productive first step” and added that it was focused on providing consumers “more options with natural ingredients, no synthetic colors and reductions in sugar, fat and sodium.”

    Stacy Flathau, the chief corporate affairs officer for W.K. Kellogg, said in an emailed statement that the company looked forward to working with the new administration.

    While the industry memo expressed alarm about the plan to remove synthetic colors, it did not address Mr. Kennedy’s additional proposal targeting some food ingredients deemed safe.

    Advocates for food safety have criticized the existing GRAS policy as a loophole that enables food companies to introduce untested ingredients that in some cases have proven hazardous. About 1,000 ingredients deemed safe have been reviewed by the F.D.A., but Mr. Kennedy targeted the ones that companies deem acceptable with no government oversight.

    “Eliminating this loophole will provide transparency to consumers, help get our nation’s food supply back on track by ensuring that ingredients being introduced into foods are safe, and ultimately Make America Healthy Again,” Mr. Kennedy said in a statement.

    Bills to remove synthetic colors from the food supply have taken off since California banned Red Dye No. 3, a move that the F.D.A. followed. Other state proposals have targeted titanium dioxide, a compound used to make food appear shiny. Texas and West Virginia have moved to strip colorants from some school lunches.

    In Ms. Hockstad’s letter to food company executives, she said Mr. Kennedy wanted synthetic color additives known as FD&C colors, or Food, Drug & Cosmetic dyes, removed during his administration.

    Vani Hari, an activist known online as the Food Babe who did not attend the meeting, applauded Mr. Kennedy’s willingness to take on the food industry. “Bobby gave the food industry an ultimatum,” she said. “Either work with us to make these changes happen or we’ll do it ourselves.”

    Mr. Kennedy was expected to meet with members of the Make America Healthy Again commission on Tuesday.

    Stuart Pape, a lawyer who represents food companies, said Mr. Kennedy’s plan was “ambitious.” He said the F.D.A. traditionally had proposed removal of one coloring at a time, presenting research on why the ingredient was unsafe. Whether there is an adequate supply of alternative colorings would be a concern of a broader plan.

    “I think Kennedy has made no secret that he intends to go after the food ingredients,” Mr. Pape said. “And I think this is the opening of that war.”

    Dr. Peter Lurie, a former F.D.A. official and director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group, said the effort might not have a significant effect on major chronic diseases including diabetes and heart disease.

    The data on cancer related to food dyes was mostly focused on Red No. 3, he said. In the waning days of the Biden administration, the F.D.A. issued a ban on Red No. 3 that would take effect in the coming years. Red dye No. 3 has been linked to some cancers in animals, but not in humans.

    Still, he said that Mr. Kennedy’s move might be effective because the dyes do little other than to make unhealthy food appear more appealing. Despite spending years fighting efforts to limit food dyes, he said, food executives may join other business leaders who have been eager to kowtow to the current administration.

    “Given their fear of angering the administration,” Dr. Lurie said, “they may just see it in their interest to go along with this.”



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  • FDA Nominee Marty Makary to Face Grilling Over Cutbacks and Policy Shifts

    FDA Nominee Marty Makary to Face Grilling Over Cutbacks and Policy Shifts


    Dr. Marty Makary may face sharp questions from senators about whether he will defend the Food and Drug Administration against staff cutbacks and industry pressure on Thursday, although he is still expected to sail through his confirmation hearing to become the agency’s commissioner.

    Dr. Makary built his reputation as a contrarian in the medical field, gaining widespread notice by speaking out about medical errors. Those close to him have remarked on his willingness to agree with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s health secretary, on a variety of issues.

    As a pancreatic cancer surgeon and health policy researcher at Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Makary has been viewed by some as a study in contrasts. He has written several books criticizing what he considers flaws in medical orthodoxy that result in recommendations backed by scant evidence.

    Yet he also drew attention from the Trump team as a Fox News personality with more controversial views, like his relatively early predictions that Covid would fade as a concern and that widespread immunity would take hold long before it did.

    Dr. Reshma Ramachandran, an assistant professor at the Yale School of Medicine, said that it was not clear which is the “true Marty Makary.”

    She said that was an important question, given some of Mr. Kennedy’s pronouncements. The health secretary has suggested that the F.D.A. should lift constraints on risky products like raw milk, which can be rife with bacteria, and had embraced hydroxychloroquine, a drug briefly used as a Covid therapy before its risks were deemed to exceed any benefit.

    “I’m hoping, and kind of desperately hoping,” she said, “that just a top-line overall priority for him is to maintain the integrity and independence of the agency.”

    Mr. Kennedy has already begun to signal shifts in vaccine policy, an area Dr. Makary would also oversee at the F.D.A. Mr. Kennedy has expressed an interest in examining the safety of vaccines that have been on the market for decades and that protect millions of American children and adults against debilitating diseases.

    The agency has vast regulatory authority over products including prescription and over-the-counter drugs, medical devices, tobacco and about 80 percent of the food supply.

    The F.D.A. has a staff of about 18,000 and a budget of about $7.2 billion. Among its many oversight roles, the agency regulates artificial intelligence software used to scan medical images, an area where the agency has been dismissed as too permissive in its approvals.

    If confirmed, Dr. Makary would first encounter tensions among staff members, who have been whipsawed by the Trump administration’s aggressive cost-cutting measures in recent weeks.

    The staff endured an initial round of about 700 layoffs, decimating some product-review teams that ensure the safety of medical devices such as surgical robots and systems that deliver insulin to people with diabetes. Those firings were followed by some job reinstatements.

    On Tuesday, panic swept through some quarters of the agency when the Trump administration put about two million square feet of the agency’s Maryland office space up for possible sale before backing off. Concern also spread when the lease to a key drug-safety lab in St. Louis was posted as savings on the “Wall of Receipts” advertised by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency. (The agency said on Wednesday that the lab would remain open.)

    Further staff cuts are expected.

    “What are the F.D.A. resources going to look like in an environment where it seems like the current approach is slashing and burning, without any kind of thoughtful deliberation?” asked Dr. Aaron S. Kesselheim, a Harvard professor of medicine who has studied the F.D.A.

    In documents filed with the Office of Government Ethics, Dr. Makary pledged to step away from millions of dollars in financial interests. Those steps include resigning from his role as co-owner of Global Appropriateness Measures, a company that scans health data for signs of inappropriate medical care with clients including health plans and physician groups. He also said he resigned from positions at Sesame, a telehealth company that provides weight-loss medications, and from MedRegen, a pharmaceutical company, and others.

    There are many other issues that Dr. Makary would face, including a new review that Mr. Kennedy pledged to undertake on the safety of abortion pills. Tobacco companies could emerge emboldened after the Biden administration failed to advance cigarette restrictions, and after having heavily contributed to President Trump’s campaign. The president’s decision to impose tariffs could affect the supply of essential medicines from overseas.

    He will also be expected to advance Mr. Kennedy’s goal of ending what he has described as corruption in public health agencies, closing the revolving door between the F.D.A. and the industries it regulates. Dr. Makary will be expected to work with the Make America Healthy Again coalition, which is banking on the administration to identify and remove unhealthy food additives.

    Those priorities are already appearing to clash, though: The new acting chief of the F.D.A. food division, Kyle Diamantas, comes directly from a law firm where he was defending the maker of infant formula, a regulated product, against claims that it harmed premature babies.



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  • ‘Hamilton’ Cancels Kennedy Center Run Over Trump’s Takeover

    ‘Hamilton’ Cancels Kennedy Center Run Over Trump’s Takeover


    “Hamilton,” the musical theater juggernaut about the birth of American democracy, is canceling plans to perform next year at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, citing President Trump’s moves to impose his ideological and cultural values on the long-cherished venue.

    The musical had been slated to be part of the Kennedy Center’s celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. But after Mr. Trump ousted the Democratic members from the center’s once-bipartisan board, became its chairman and replaced its president, “Hamilton” decided not to come.

    “This latest action by Trump means it’s not the Kennedy Center as we knew it,” the show’s creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, said in a joint interview on Wednesday with its lead producer, Jeffrey Seller. “The Kennedy Center was not created in this spirit, and we’re not going to be a part of it while it is the Trump Kennedy Center. We’re just not going to be part of it.”

    Mr. Seller said the “Hamilton” team believed that Mr. Trump “took away our national arts center for all of us.”

    “It became untenable for us to participate in an organization that had become so deeply politicized,” he said. “The Kennedy Center is for all of us, and it pains me deeply that they took it over and changed that. They said it’s not for all of us. It’s just for Donald Trump and his crowd. So we made a decision we can’t do it.”

    A spokesman for the Kennedy Center said that he had no immediate comment.

    The decision takes “Hamilton,” the hugely popular retelling of the nation’s founding, out of the Kennedy Center’s plans to celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence — which President Trump has made a priority of commemorating. Although the Kennedy Center had last year announced that “Hamilton” would be staged there in 2026 as part of those celebrations, it had not yet put tickets on sale, and no contract had been signed. Mr. Miranda and Mr. Seller said the show would soon announce another venue in the Washington area so those hoping to see the show in that region would still have an opportunity to do so.

    The cancellation comes at a time of transformation for the Kennedy Center. Mr. Trump has said he has a “vision for a Golden Age in arts and culture,” but has not specified what that might look like. His choice for Kennedy Center president, Richard Grenell, has promised “a big, huge celebration of the birth of Christ at Christmas.” (The Kennedy Center has regularly presented Christmas-themed festivities.)

    The venue’s administrators are now figuring out what kind of art they are willing to present, while artists are deciding whether they are still willing to perform there and some ticket buyers are weighing whether they plan to continue attending.

    Since Mr. Trump’s moves to take control of the Kennedy Center, a handful of artists have canceled shows there, including the musician Rhiannon Giddens and the actress Issa Rae. The soprano Renée Fleming and the singer-songwriter Ben Folds stepped down from advisory positions with the center and its affiliated organizations.

    “Hamilton,” a biomusical about America’s first treasury secretary, was the biggest Broadway hit in years. It opened on Broadway in 2015 and won both the Pulitzer Prize and the Tony Award for best musical. On Broadway it has grossed more than $1 billion and has been seen by nearly five million people. There have been multiple other productions over the last decade; it is currently running in New York and London and is touring in North America and Britain. And a live-capture version of the show is available to stream on Disney+.

    Mr. Miranda is no stranger to the Kennedy Center. In 2018, during the first Trump Administration, he and other members of the “Hamilton” creative team were among the Kennedy Center honorees. “Hamilton” has been staged twice previously at the Kennedy Center, playing there for 14 weeks in 2018, when Mr. Trump was president, and for 10 weeks in 2022, when Joseph R. Biden Jr. was president.

    Mr. Miranda is also no stranger to dust-ups with the Trump Administration. In 2016, shortly after Mr. Trump was elected to the presidency for the first time, the “Hamilton” cast delivered a curtain call appeal to Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who was in the Broadway audience, asking that the Trump administration “uphold our American values” and “work on behalf of all of us.”

    Mr. Trump lashed out, demanding an apology, and saying he had heard that “Hamilton” was “highly overrated.”

    The show had a better relationship with the Obama administration — Mr. Miranda performed a song from what would become “Hamilton” at the White House in 2009, and in 2016 members of the cast performed at the White House. On that occasion, the first lady Michelle Obama called the musical “the best piece of art in any form that I have ever seen in my life.”

    Also on Wednesday, Melissa Errico, a well-regarded musical theater performer, said that her World War I-themed concert, “The Story of a Rose,” which had been scheduled to run at the Kennedy Center in May, would relocate to a venue in Northern Virginia. Errico and the show’s producer, Daniel Dayton, said the decision had been made because of concerns over seating capacity. But Ms. Errico also said: “I’m glad at how it turned out. I wanted to do a show that everyone could attend — left, right and center.”

    Most of this season’s theater programming appears to be intact. Greg Nobile, a lead producer of a Tony-winning revival of “Parade,” a musical about an antisemitic lynching in the early-20th-century American South, said in an interview before the “Hamilton” cancellation that he continued to expect the “Parade” tour to perform at the Kennedy Center this summer.

    But next season’s programming could be at risk. Meredith Blair, the president and chief executive of the Booking Group, which arranges tours for Broadway shows, said several shows that had planned to perform at the Kennedy Center next season but had not yet publicly announced those plans are now quietly canceling.



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  • Oz, Trump’s Medicare Nominee, Pledges to Divest Interests in Health Care Stocks

    Oz, Trump’s Medicare Nominee, Pledges to Divest Interests in Health Care Stocks


    Since 2023, Dr. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity doctor nominated by President Trump to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has been a high-priced pitchman for iHerb, a California supplement retailer.

    He has aggressively promoted iHerb products on social media, recommending supplements that he says will stimulate hair growth and provide smoother skin. Olive oil, which iHerb sells, he said, “might be able to actually help with Alzheimer’s.”

    It turns out Dr. Oz is also a sizable investor in the supplement company, according to filings released on Wednesday by the Office of Government Ethics.

    Dr. Oz pledged to sell the vast majority of his multimillion-dollar holdings, which are varied and include investments in numerous health care companies and two artificial intelligence firms.

    But the fate of his iHerb holding, one of the largest in his portfolio and valued at an unspecified figure in the range of $5 million to $25 million, is unclear, according to experts who reviewed his disclosure forms.

    In one filing, Dr. Oz pledged to divest his iHerb holdings “as soon as practicable but not later than 90 days after confirmation” by the Senate to the government post.

    In another government disclosure, he repeated that language but then held open the possibility that even once he is at the helm of the agency, he might retain some iHerb stock until the company goes public or is bought. Either of those events could cause the stocks to soar and result in a windfall for Dr. Oz.

    Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis who specializes in government ethics, said that the conflicting language in the disclosures left it vague as to whether he would sell his holdings. “It is poorly drafted and unclear,” she said, noting it even contained a typographical error.

    Richard W. Painter, a former ethics official in the administration of George W. Bush, said the wording was ambiguous. “I cannot figure out if he is going to sell or not,” he said.

    Dr. Oz, 64, also indicated in the filings that he would retain a financial interest in an entity called iHerb Oz Partners L.L.C., created in 2023 when he became the company’s pitchman. What the entity does is unknown, and so is whether it has a separate ownership stake in iHerb.

    Christopher Krepich, a spokesman for Dr. Oz, declined to discuss the apparent discrepancy.

    Dr. Oz, a heart surgeon who rose to fame as the host of a daytime television show that ran for 13 seasons, has frequently been criticized for supporting questionable medical treatments and for the promotion of products on his show. He ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in Pennsylvania in 2022.

    His financial filings underscore how wealthy Dr. Oz and his family are, with a net worth somewhere in the neighborhood of roughly $90 million to $335 million. Lisa Oz, his wife, is among numerous heirs to one of the nation’s largest private companies, Asplundh Tree Expert, which provides tree-removal and related services for utilities and municipalities. It is impossible to pinpoint the couples’s net worth because the financial disclosure forms allow estimates of asset values to be listed under a wide range.

    Dr. Oz is preparing for his confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee, meeting with various lawmakers in Washington. The panel has not set a date for his testimony but it is expected to do so in the coming weeks now that his financial and ethics papers have been filed with the committee.

    His investments in iHerb and in other health care companies is likely to be a focus for some lawmakers. As the country’s top Medicare official, he could press private plans that offer insurance under the federal program to increase their coverage of vitamins and supplements sold by iHerb and others.

    Dr. Oz listed dozens of investments, including in health care companies that do business with the U.S. government, that he said he would end his associations with and would divest from. Among those holdings are UnitedHealth Group, the conglomerate that sells private insurance plans for older adults on Medicare, pharmaceutical giants like AbbVie and Eli Lilly, the for-profit hospital chain HCA Healthcare and the supplement company PanTheryx.

    In the new filings, Dr. Oz also listed his role as an adviser to three health care companies: Eko Health, the maker of digital stethoscopes; Housey Pharma; and Cardiology Partners, a Florida cardiology practice. In the government ethics agreement, he said that if confirmed he would resign from his role at those companies and divest his holdings in them.

    He also said he planned to divest his stock in several major technology companies, including Amazon, Apple and Microsoft. He owns Bitcoin valued at as much as $1 million. It was not among the assets listed in the filings that he would sell.





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  • At Kennedy Center, Trump Inherits a Tough Job: Fund-Raising

    At Kennedy Center, Trump Inherits a Tough Job: Fund-Raising


    In just one week, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington has been completely transformed.

    President Trump purged the center’s board of all Biden appointees and installed himself as chairman, ousting the financier David M. Rubenstein, the center’s largest donor. The new board fired Deborah F. Rutter, the center’s president for more than a decade. At least three other top staff members were dismissed.

    Performers have dropped out in protest amid fears that Mr. Trump’s call to rid the center of “woke” influences, drag shows and “anti-American propaganda” will result in a reshaping of programming too narrowly aligned with the president’s own tastes.

    This concern — that the center’s tradition of pluralism, free expression and classical art forms is in jeopardy — has dominated conversation about its future. But just as relevant, experts say, are questions about its financial stability.

    Though the abrupt takeover by the new administration might suggest the center is an arts adjunct of the federal government, it is actually a semi-independent nonprofit.

    It operates under the Smithsonian Institution as a public-private partnership, and only a small portion of its $268 million budget — about $43 million, or 16 percent — comes from the federal government. That subsidy is not spent on programming but is earmarked for operations, maintenance and repairs of the property, which is federally owned.

    All the rest of the income either has to be earned — through ticket sales, space rentals, parking fees, food vendors and licensing fees — or donated by individuals, corporations or foundations.

    “It’s a very hefty fund-raising challenge,” said Michael M. Kaiser, chairman of the DeVos Institute of Arts Management at the University of Maryland, who served for 13 years as president of the Kennedy Center. “How many of the donors and ticket buyers are not going to renew their giving or their purchase of seats in the new environment?”

    Ms. Rutter said in an interview that managing the organization was “much more complex than anyone really understands,” noting the need to cultivate relationships with artists; oversee staff, fund-raise and arrange programming; and work with Congress and the White House.

    “You have to really deeply care and nurture every aspect of it,” she said. “It is not a casual thing.”

    She noted that the center, like many arts organizations, faces serious financial pressures. Its endowment, at $163 million, is relatively small for an institution of its size. Carnegie Hall, for example, has an operating budget that is less than half that of the Kennedy Center but its endowment is roughly twice as large.

    “The Kennedy Center is meant to be a beacon for the arts across the country,” Ms. Rutter said. “I just hope that it can be sustained.”

    Fund-raising had been robust under Ms. Rutter and Mr. Rubenstein, the ousted chairman. The center took in nearly $141 million in contributions and grants in the fiscal year ending in September 2023, the most recent year for which the institution’s tax records are available. That year, the center began a fund-raising effort to bolster its endowment.

    Mr. Rubenstein, a founder and chairman of the private equity firm the Carlyle Group, is expected to honor his gifts to date. He has given the center well over $100 million over the years and helped raise considerably more, making his largess potentially difficult to replace.

    It is unclear whether Mr. Trump would assume any part of the fund-raising role typically embraced by chairmen, and it’s hard to see how he would have the time, given his day job. Mr. Trump is more likely to delegate that task to other board members, who may find that the president’s policies have alienated some of the center’s longtime supporters but potentially attracted others who had regarded the center as an elitist institution.

    “The center is now a division of the White House,” said E. Andrew Taylor, an associate professor and director of the arts management program at American University in Washington. “This might make donors think twice about contributing to the federal government.”

    But Karen Brooks Hopkins, who long served the Brooklyn Academy of Music as its president, said she didn’t think it would be difficult for Mr. Trump as chairman to find donors, despite the overhaul.

    “You are not going to have a problem fund-raising, because people will give money based on the fact that he may be asking them for it,” she said. “As we’ve seen, he is a very successful fund-raiser.”

    Over its 54-year history, the Kennedy Center’s biggest donors have been both Republicans and Democrats. The billionaire investor Stephen A. Schwarzman, a supporter of Mr. Trump, gives at least $1 million annually. So does the energy magnate Roger Sant, who is married to Representative Doris Matsui of California, a Democrat.

    The Mellon Foundation has long supported the center. Large corporate donors include Boeing and Booz Allen Hamilton.

    Major donors were reluctant to discuss their sponsorship plans going forward.

    The development department at the Kennedy Center has a staff of roughly 70, a number that reflects the scope and significance of the fund-raising effort but also one that is likely to draw some scrutiny from a White House whose willingness to cull staff has been more than aggressive.

    A White House spokesman declined to discuss specifics of whether the Kennedy Center’s spending was a matter for review. But Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a statement on Tuesday that “the Kennedy Center learned the hard way that if you go woke, you will go broke,” an apparent reference to the fact that the center ran a $1 million deficit last year.

    Later on Tuesday, a White House official released a statement that said: “Overall the mission at the Kennedy Center will be consistent throughout the administration, making sure it’s serving the American taxpayer correctly, making sure we’re uprooting any D.E.I. or woke ideology, and making sure we clean up waste, fraud and abuse.”

    The bulk of the Kennedy Center’s revenues — $121 million — are derived from ticket sales and other forms of earned income, such as space rentals and the fees paid for broadcast rights to performances and other events.

    The center hosts more than 2,000 engagements each year and runs a variety of education programs, which also generate income. The center has expanded its offerings in recent years in an effort to reach new audiences, with genres like comedy and hip-hop now side by side with classical music, ballet and theater. The campus includes three large performance halls and two midsize theaters.

    Also income-producing are two major broadcast events: the presentation of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor and the Kennedy Center Honors program, which celebrates prominent people in the arts with a black-tie telecast.

    A CBS spokesperson said that it would broadcast the next honors program as planned in December. The broadcaster’s 10-year agreement with the Kennedy Center expires after this year.

    Netflix, which streams the Twain prize ceremony held in March, did not respond to a request for comment.

    Two financial bulwarks for the center have been their flagship companies, the Washington National Opera and the National Symphony Orchestra. Even with the new leadership, the opera and the symphony are expected to maintain a regular performance schedule at the center. The symphony will lead a long-planned tour next month in Florida, including a stop in West Palm Beach, not far from Mar-a-Lago. The musicians issued a statement last week saying they were “proud to perform for our patrons, our community in our nation’s capital, and the country at large.”

    There have also been protest cancellations by performers, though not yet on a scale that would suggest a significant financial impact. The actress Issa Rae, who was set to appear next month at the Kennedy Center for “An Evening With Issa Rae,” canceled the engagement because of what she described as “an infringement on the values of an institution that has faithfully celebrated artists of all backgrounds through all mediums.”

    On Sunday, the Alfred Street Baptist Church, a prominent Black church in Virginia, said it was canceling a planned Christmas concert at the center because its new leaders stood in opposition to the “longstanding tradition of honoring artistic expression across all backgrounds.”

    Mr. Trump’s supporters, however, say the administration will have no trouble finding entertainers eager to perform at the center who will draw big crowds. Calling into a meeting of the new Kennedy Center board, Mr. Trump said last week of future programming: “We’re going to make it hot.”

    Some conservative groups have suggested in recent years that the federal government should stop providing aid to the center, but Mr. Trump has not weighed in on whether to continue to provide funding at the same level. The Kennedy Center did not respond to a request for comment about how Richard Grenell, a Trump loyalist who replaced Ms. Rutter, might approach the funding issue.

    Mr. Grenell raised concerns about the center’s finances on X last week, detailing a meeting with the center’s chief financial officer in which, he wrote, she acknowledged that the center had “ZERO cash on hand.”

    Some arts professionals say that the Trump administration may be underestimating the amount of experience and expertise required to run and finance an institution like the Kennedy Center.

    “There is knowledge and relationships that are important to the functioning of a performing art center,” said Reynold Levy, the former president of Lincoln Center and a philanthropy expert. “To the degree that they are gone and the Kennedy Center maintains its mission, it’s going to be severely handicapped.”



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  • Hundreds of Artists Call on N.E.A. to Roll Back Trump’s Restrictions

    Hundreds of Artists Call on N.E.A. to Roll Back Trump’s Restrictions


    In one of the first signs of collective pushback to the Trump administration’s arts initiatives, several hundred American artists are calling on the National Endowment for the Arts to roll back restrictions on grants to institutions with programming that promotes diversity or “gender ideology.”

    Among the 463 writers, poets, dancers, visual artists and others who signed the letter are the Pulitzer-winning playwrights Jackie Sibblies Drury, Lynn Nottage and Paula Vogel. There is also one name with striking historical resonance: Holly Hughes, a performance artist who in 1990 was one of the so-called N.E.A. Four, denied funding by the agency because of concern from conservative critics at the height of that era’s culture wars.

    “In some ways this just feels like déjà vu all over again,” Ms. Hughes, now a professor of art and design at the University of Michigan, said in a telephone interview. “These funding restrictions are a good barometer for who is the easy punching bag in American culture at the moment.”

    The artists on Tuesday sent a letter to the N.E.A. objecting to new requirements for grant applicants that the organization put in place this month to comply with executive orders signed by President Trump. One of the requirements is that applicants “not operate any programs promoting ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ that violate any applicable federal anti-discrimination laws”; the other is that federal funds not be used “to promote gender ideology,” referring to an executive order, prompted by Mr. Trump’s concern about public policy toward transgender people, that declares that American policy is “to recognize two sexes, male and female.”

    The artists’ letter asks the N.E.A. to “reverse” the changes, saying “abandoning our values is wrong, and it won’t protect us. Obedience in advance only feeds authoritarianism.”

    “Trump and his enablers may use doublespeak to claim that support for artists of color amounts to ‘discrimination’ and that funding the work of trans and women artists promotes ‘gender ideology’ (whatever that is),” the letter adds. “But we know better: the arts are for and represent everybody.”

    The letter was sent to 26 N.E.A. officials on Tuesday morning; the agency has not yet commented.

    The letter-writing effort was spearheaded by Annie Dorsen, a writer and theater director — and a recent law school graduate — who was a recipient of a so-called genius grant from the MacArthur Foundation in 2019. “I felt it was important in this moment to signal to the N.E.A. and to anyone else paying attention that artists were aware of what was happening and not staying silent,” Ms. Dorsen said.

    The changes at the N.E.A. are occurring at the same time that Mr. Trump has assumed control of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He replaced numerous board members, and the new board appointed him as the center’s chairman; several staffers have been ousted, and some artists have resigned from positions there or canceled appearances.

    Some programming has also been canceled, including a touring production of a musical for young audiences, “Finn,” about a gray shark who wishes to be a glittery fish. The show’s creators believe the tour was canceled because the show’s message of self-acceptance was deemed problematic during the Trump era, but Kennedy Center officials say there was not sufficient interest in the tour from presenters around the country to make it financially viable.



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  • A Night at the Donald J. Trump Center for the Performing Arts

    A Night at the Donald J. Trump Center for the Performing Arts


    It was the night after President Trump had officially taken over the Kennedy Center and made himself its chairman, and two well-dressed Washington women were wandering along the plush red carpet inside its Grand Foyer, so grand it could fit the Washington Monument laid on its side. They reached the eight-foot-tall bronze head of John F. Kennedy that lords over the hall and looked forlornly into his eyes.

    How much longer, one woman joked to the other, until the statue of the 35th president gets torn down and replaced with one of the 47th? They laughed bitterly.

    It was just last week that Mr. Trump announced his plan to purge the Kennedy Center’s board of its Biden appointees and to install “an amazing Chairman, DONALD J. TRUMP!” He named one of his most fiercely loyal apparatchiks, Richard Grenell, interim president and proclaimed that there would be no more “ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA” shown. He complained about drag queens performing there and said it had all become too “wokey.” Some artists canceled shows. “Welcome to the New Kennedy Center!” Mr. Trump said on social media, posting an A.I.-generated image of himself waving his arms like a conductor in a concert hall.

    Most of the people who turned up at the Kennedy Center on Thursday night to see performances in its various theaters had purchased their tickets long before any of that was set in motion. Now they found themselves at an arts center on the cusp of becoming something different — something Trumpian.

    Some speculated what that might look like.

    “I feel like we might just have ‘Cats’ on rotation moving forward,” said Pamela Deutsch, a documentary film producer who once worked as an usher at the Kennedy Center. (Mr. Trump, who once had dreams of becoming a Broadway producer, is a longtime fan of Andrew Lloyd Webber.) She was there to catch a set by the comic W. Kamau Bell. So was Louis Woolard, a 73-year-old psychotherapist from Maryland. What sort of cultural programming did he envision under the artistic stewardship of the 47th president? “I don’t know,” said Mr. Woolard. “I guess country music.”

    At the other end of the Grand Foyer, American Ballet Theater was putting on a production of “Crime and Punishment,” an effort to make dance out of Dostoyevsky. A 75-year-old real estate investment banker named Wayne Koonce waited in line to have his ticket scanned. “Maybe the Mariinsky and the Bolshoi will be invited back now that he’s cozying up to Putin,” he said.

    For the many people in liberal Washington scandalized by Mr. Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center, Thursday night was like a cross between a wake and last call. Drag performers protested outside in the cold, as students from George Washington University marched around shouting about Mr. Trump. Inside, some well-heeled patrons of the ballet were literally clutching their pearls as they contemplated the future of the institution. At the other end of the foyer, copies of something designed to look like a children’s book called “Do the Work! An Antiracist Activity Book” were being sold ahead of Mr. Bell’s stand-up routine. (He co-wrote the book.)

    “You know, Trump took over, he’s the new chairman of the Kennedy Center,” he said at the top of his set. The audience let out a low boo. “You shouldn’t call it the Kennedy Center anymore,” he said. “Let’s call it the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Center.” More booing. “If you’re going to have people running it with no expertise at all,” he continued, “you might as well have it named after the guy with no expertise at all.” (Earlier that day, Mr. Kennedy had been confirmed as health secretary.)

    Mr. Bell tore into the president and talked about white supremacy, nationalized health care, oligarchy, fascism, socialism, transgender rights, slavery, kale chips, Nazidom and other such topics that would presumably qualify as “wokey” under new management. The comic also guessed at what sort of changes were in store.

    “How many times can you give Kid Rock the Mark Twain award?” he wondered as the audience groaned.

    On a settee outside the ballet, a husband and wife — both teachers from Arlington, Va. — tried to figure out what the president meant by “anti-American propaganda.” “I can’t figure it out,” said the wife. “Immigrants,” suggested the husband. “But what does that actually mean?” asked the wife.

    Some fretted as to whether they ought to boycott the place going forward. “Like a lot of people in Washington,” said Mr. Koonce, “we’re trying to figure out: Will we continue to come? You want to support the artists, but you don’t want to support anything connected with this philistine, backward movement of the arts, which is exactly what it’s going to be.”

    So much of what President Trump is up to in Washington is about payback. He is taking his revenge on a town that snubbed him. Last time he was president, some artists accepting the Kennedy Center honors refused to go to the White House, and in response he and Melania Trump never went to the Kennedy Center Honors.

    Vice President JD Vance, and his wife, Usha, though, seem to genuinely enjoy the Kennedy Center’s programming. She has been a member of the opera’s board for more than a year, and the couple took their young children there in December for a production of “Jungle Book” that the Kennedy Center described as being told “through a contemporary lens by framing Mowgli as a refugee trying to find safety in a new environment.” (In other words, possibly wokey.) They enjoyed it so much they went backstage after it was over.

    In Mr. Trump’s war against the town’s institutions, the battle over this one can seem low-stakes by comparison. What is a performing arts center compared to the Justice Department, trans-Atlantic alliances, foreign aid and all the rest? Still, it has struck a chord. People perambulating up the Grand Foyer on Thursday — many of whom were federal workers now fearing for their jobs — seemed especially agitated by what was happening there.

    Michael Gray, a 63-year-old retired refugee officer who worked for the State Department beginning under George H.W. Bush, was there to see the ballet. Asked what he thought about the president’s proclamation about anti-American propaganda, Mr. Gray said, “I think it’s nonsense.” But he was able to take the long view.

    “Things come and they go,” he said, “but the arts don’t, and the love of the arts does not.”



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