Composer Stephen Schwartz boasts a career spanning over fifty years. reads such as a who's who of popular Broadway musicals with titles like “Godspell” and “Pippin,” as well as creating songs for Disney animated films like “Pocahontas,” “The Prince of Egypt” and “Enchanted.”
These days, however, he attracts media attention mainly for being the composer and lyricist of the phenomenon known as “Wicked,” another Broadway hit that has now spawned a popular two-part film. You've probably heard about 2025's Wicked: For Good, whether you wanted to or not.
Now it appears that the leftist-friendly legacy media is taking advantage of the film's awards buzz to smear Bad Orange with fake news about Schwartz and the Trump-Kennedy Center. And the media thinks it might work because stories like these about trivialities hurting President Trump and going viral are intertwined with what sounds like some truth to them.
Readers may remember when the president first began raising money through gala events in May 2025 to shore up the Center's flagging finances. The left rejoiced when rumors began to circulate that “some of the artists on the traveling cast of Les Misérables, who were scheduled to perform at an upcoming charity fundraiser/performance at the Center, had threatened to boycott it… because President Trump was scheduled to appear,” as I wrote at the time.
Just recently, some of the same types woke up to the Center's board voting to name the Trump-Kennedy Center and even going so far as to cancel a jazz event on Christmas Eve.
Christmas concert at Trump Kennedy Center canceled after woke hecklers throw tantrums
In this case, Rolling Stone broke the deadlock on Friday. promote the intended story that Schwartz had canceled his performance at the upcoming gala, which was scheduled to take place at the Washington National Opera's Trump-Kennedy Center following the name change:
…[T]Washington National Opera was previously advanced a one-day gala featuring Schwartz on May 16, although webpage for this event the composer is not mentioned again.
News first reported that Schwartz withdrew from the performances, citing an email from the composer's assistant who said the center “no longer represents the apolitical space for free artistic expression that it was founded on,” adding, “There is no way I would set foot in it now.”
Rolling StoneAs I said, I happily headlined this story as “The Chaos of the Kennedy Center.”
But there is a problem. That's not true, Kennedy Center interim executive director Rick Grenell shared this on his X account on Friday, calling it “woke high school” level reporting:
Stephen Schwartz's reports are completely false.
Shame on the woke school reporters repeating this.
They never signed a contract with him, and since I arrived I have never spoken about him.
He himself said in February last year that he had not heard anything about it.
People literally…
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) January 2, 2026
Perhaps this is even more shameful for journalists, as Grenell notes:[p]people are literally plagiarizing fakes @RollingStone It goes without saying that no one should mistake anything coming from this newspaper for “journalism”, given their bad track record on this.
In any case, you will not fall below this amount. However, The New York Times tried its best, as Grenell said in his update, slamming writer Adam Nagourney for “fake news”:
🚨🚨🚨
The New York Times was caught spreading fake news. @adamnagourney can't quote the truth because it doesn't fit his narrative.
Schwartz in an interview with Newsday:
“Last year, long before the change of board and name of the Kennedy Center, Francesca Zambello invited me to become part of…
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) January 3, 2026
Here's what the composer told Newsday:
“Last year, long before the change of board and name of the Kennedy Center, Francesca Zambello invited me to participate in a Washington National Opera event on May 16, 2026,” Schwartz, 77, said in an email. “But I hadn’t heard anything about it since February 2025, so I assumed it wasn’t happening anymore.”
The media really has no basis for their shameless lies when it will further the narrative they have been building brick by brick against Donald Trump for years, and Grenell's good ploy is that he shut down this nonsense that the left tried to spread on Friday night.
Editor's note: The mainstream media continues to dismiss, promote, spread and lie about President Trump, his administration and conservatives.
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