Composer Stephen Schwartz can boast about his over five-decade career that reads like a who’s who of smash Broadway musicals, with titles like “Godspell” and “Pippin,” and creating songs for Disney animated features like Pocahontas, The Prince of Egypt, and Enchanted.
These days, though, he mostly gets media attention about being the composer and lyricist of the phenomenon known as “Wicked”—another Broadway hit that has now spawned a two-part smash hit movie. You may have heard of 2025’s Wicked: For Good, whether you wanted to or not.
Now, it appears that leftist-friendly legacy media is taking advantage of the movie’s awards buzz to smear Orange Man Bad with fake news about Schwartz and the Trump-Kennedy Center. And the media thinks it just might fly, as these sort of nothingburger stories to hurt President Trump that go viral get enmeshed with what sounds like a sliver of truth in them
Readers might recall when the president first began raising money with gala events to shore up the Center’s sagging finances in May 2025. Leftists rejoiced when a rumor started circulating that “some performers in the traveling cast of ‘Les Misérables’ who were slated to take part in an upcoming charity fundraiser/performance at the Center threatened to boycott it … because Pres. Trump is set to appear,” as I wrote at the time.
More recently, some of the same woke types have been triggered by the Center’s board voting to name it the Trump-Kennedy Center, even going so far as to cancel a Christmas Eve jazz event.
READ MORE: Ric Grenell Drops Some Reality on Kennedy Center Performers Threatening Boycott of Trump Appearance
Christmas Eve Concert Canceled at Trump Kennedy Center As Woke Scolds Throw Tantrum
In this instance, Rolling Stone magazine got the ball rolling on Friday by pushing an alleged story that Schwartz had canceled his appearance at an upcoming gala scheduled to happen at the Trump-Kennedy Center for the Washington National Opera after the name change:
…[T]he Washington National Opera had previously promoted a one-night gala featuring Schwartz on May 16, though the webpage for that event no longer mentions the composer.
Newsday first reported that Schwartz was backing out of the performances, citing an email from the composer’s assistant saying the center “no longer represents the apolitical place for free artistic expression it was founded to be,” adding, “There’s no way I would set foot in it now.”
Rolling Stone, as I said, gleefully went about blasting out the story as “Kennedy Center Chaos” in part of the headline.
But there’s a problem. It was not true, Kennedy Center interim executive director, Ric Grenell, shared about it on his X account on Friday, calling it out as “woke high school”-level reporting:
The Stephen Schwartz reports are totally bogus.
Shame on the woke high school reporters repeating it.
He was never signed and I’ve never had a single conversation on him since arriving.
He himself said last February he hadn’t heard anything on it.
People are literally…
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) January 2, 2026
Possibly even more shamefully for the journos, as Grenell notes, “[p]eople are literally plagiarizing a fake @RollingStone story.” It should go without saying that no one should mistake anything emanating from that rag as “journalism,” considering their failed track record on it.
Anyway, you don’t get much lower than that. The New York Times tried their darndest, though, as Grenell said in an update, hitting writer Adam Nagourney for “fake news”:
🚨🚨🚨
New York Times caught pushing fake news. @adamnagourney fails to quote the truth because it didn’t fit his narrative.
Schwartz to Newsday:
“Last year, way before the change of Board and name of the Kennedy Center, I was invited by Francesca Zambello to be part of a…
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) January 3, 2026
Here’s what the composer told Newsday:
“Last year, way before the change of Board and name of the Kennedy Center, I was invited by Francesca Zambello to be part of a Washington National Opera event on May 16, 2026,” Schwartz, 77, said in his email. “But I’ve heard nothing about it since February 2025, so I have assumed it’s no longer happening.”
The media truly has no basement on their shameless lies, when it will further the narrative they have built brick by disgusting brick for years against Donald Trump, and good catch by Grenell in shutting this nonsense the Left tried to spread on a Friday night.
Editor’s Note: The mainstream media continues to deflect, gaslight, spin, and lie about President Trump, his administration, and conservatives.
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