The “Woke” Painting That’s Driving the Trump Administration Crazy

President Donald Trump’s administration was so triggered by a “woke” painting that it had it removed.

For years, a Kehinde Wiley painting titled “Young Artists After Siamesas 1960” hung in the U.S. Embassy in the Dominican Republic. The piece, commissioned by the federal government in 2013, shows four Dominican models against a bright floral backdrop. Wiley is perhaps best known for his portrait of former President Barack Obama, which currently hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. It is perhaps that fact that has made the Trump administration so upset.

Either way, the Trump administration just can’t handle the prospect of displaying another one of Wiley’s works. After covering the painting with a large tarp, State Department officials removed the piece last week. Now they’re considering whether they’re allowed to sell it, The New York Times reported Monday.

Speaking on Sean Spicer’s podcast last week, Erin Scavino, the director of art in embassies, described the painting as “very woke” and “aesthetically terrifying”—whatever that means. According to her State Department bio, Scavino is a lawyer whose vague artistic background includes “cultural expression through fluid installation art” and “innovative design residency programs that integrate art with recycled materials, turning waste into creative wonders” (which sounds pretty “woke”). Her presence in the Trump administration probably has less to do with her fluid installations and more to do with the fact that she did a brief stint on The Apprentice and is currently married to eternal Trump flunkie Dan Scavino, who currently serves as the director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office.

Virginia Shore, who served as director of art in embassies from 2000 to 2017, said there was no precedent for selling the piece. “Calling this ‘woke’ is difficult for me to understand,” she told the Times. “This is a program validated and financially backed under Bush. There is a science of building trust and empathy across borders.”

The Trump administration wasn’t even willing to acknowledge what it is about the painting that offends its sensibilities. In a statement Monday, a state department spokesperson didn’t even address the actual work. Instead, the statement referred to allegations of sexual assault against Wiley, which he has denied, and criticized Wiley for once describing a different artwork as a “play on the ‘kill whitey’ thing.”

“The work of an individual with such violent and racist words and depictions has no place in the America First State Department,” the spokesperson said.

If the Trump administration wanted to get rid of racist art, why reinstall a confederate statue? Well, because it’s not about that at all. The effort comes amid a wider trend of the Trump administration efforts to expunge Black history from American monuments and museums.

Leah Campos, the U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republic, celebrated the painting’s removal on Instagram.

“In the Trump Administration and under my leadership we are turning away from globalist and woke ideologies and instead embracing American patriotism and the beauty of our great country!” she wrote, including a video of the painting’s removal edited with the Twisted Sister song, “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” Leave it to the Trump administration to put an anti-establishment song over a video of government censorship.

Canada has hit back at the United States, announcing retaliatory tariffs up to 50 percent on $20 billion worth of American goods, most notably aluminum, steel, and fish. Trump announced 50 percent tariffs on Canada last month, and threatened to levy even more this week.

Canada’s tariffs will affect a wide variety of U.S. goods beginning September 8, including steel, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper, and electronics.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney suspended trade talks with Trump last Friday after the U.S. demanded last-minute concessions regarding Quebec law requiring the U.S. to print manuals and packaging in French—a seemingly minute detail to make a dealbreaker. This of course led Canada to exit talks, as they took it as an attack on their culture and sovereignty.  

Now U.S. consumers will pay for the perceived slight. 

“Canada must respond, and today we are—in a proportionate, targeted, and strategic way. Today, I am announcing that Canada will match the United States tariffs dollar for dollar, rate for rate. Effective September 8, Canada will impose counter tariffs of up to 15, 25, or 50 percent on $27.6 billion in imports from the United States of America,” Canadian Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said on Tuesday. “For each product, our tariff would match the American tariff on the same type of Canadian goods. Those tariffs will have real consequences for Canadian workers, businesses, and communities across our nation. Canada must respond, and today we are in a proportionate, targeted, and strategic way.”

These tariffs from Canada will inevitably make it more difficult for U.S. companies that do business with Canada to compete in the near future—and cause prices on those aforementioned key goods to rise. And more than anything, Trump’s chaotic, greedy vindictiveness has cost us a good relationship with perhaps our closest ally in the world. 

According to reports, CIA Director John Ratcliffe secretly flew to Moscow on Tuesday. The purpose of Ratcliffe’s Russia trip is unclear, though inside sources that spoke with CBS News said that he is attending meetings. His visit marks the first time since 2021—months before Russia invaded Ukraine—that a director of the CIA has visited the country.

News of Ratcliffe’s involvement came in the wake of intense speculation surrounding a U.S. Air Force Boeing C-17A Globemaster III transport plane that was spotted flying from Riga, Latvia, to Vnukovo Airport just outside Moscow.

An observer that flew out of Riga Airport Tuesday morning described seeing an aircraft similar in shape, color, and size as a U.S. Air Force C-40B—which are typically used to transport senior U.S. government officials and senior military commanders—alongside the C-17, as well as several cars with diplomatic plates.

Air traffic trackers recorded the C-40’s flight path originating at Joint Base Andrews and landing in Riga.

Moscow residents shared video of the envoy’s arrival, which involved multiple SUVs with tinted windows breezing through city traffic with a heavy police escort.

Neither the U.S. nor Russia has commented on the trip, or offered any insight into who is participating in the meetings. Rather, the Kremlin announced Tuesday that no talks between Moscow and U.S. envoys were expected this week.

“No, there are no such plans,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at a press conference when asked whether more talks had been scheduled to end the Russia-Ukraine war.

Trump administration officials reportedly asked Kyiv not to strike Moscow, St. Petersburg, or the northern regions of Russia between Monday and Wednesday, to which Ukraine agreed, according to the Financial Times.

The CIA’s press office did not respond to a request for comment prior to publication.

Former CIA Director William Burns was the last CIA chief to visit Moscow. He did so in November 2021 to warn senior Russian officials and Russian President Vladimir Putin against war with Ukraine. Fast forward to today, four years into the war, and peace talks between Russia and Ukraine have made little progress.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is grappling with a domestic catastrophe alongside the violent conflict. Last week, Zelenskiy’s ousted Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov accused Zelenskiy’s administration of rampant corruption and called for a wartime poll to potentially unseat the former comedian, despite regional laws that prevent an election during wartime. Zelenskiy told reporters Sunday that he believed an election at this time would “destroy” Ukraine.

The Republican Party’s first-ever midterm convention is quickly becoming a Trump-style grift.

Puck reports that the National Republican Campaign Committee, which is hosting the September event, is asking for House members to pay a minimum of $25,000 to attend the two-day event in Dallas with a guest, with higher packages costing as much as $100,000. On top of that, the event is taking corporate sponsorship dollars, which are going to a nonprofit that doesn’t have to disclose its donors.

All this is for a convention that doesn’t include any actual party business, since no candidates are being nominated like in presidential election years. The whole thing appears to have been planned haphazardly, with invitations only going out in the last few weeks to Republican leaders and lawmakers, many of whom have other commitments.

“It’s yet another opportunity to shake down corporate America,” one Republican strategist told Puck, adding that it has turned into a “shit show.”

“Nobody understands why we’re doing a midterm convention. It’s just another show that Trump is going to put on to remind the voters that he is sitting there, and maybe they don’t want to be reminded of that,” the strategist added.

The convention is also taking place on September 9 and 10, right before the twenty-fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The images out of the event are going to be of the wealthy Republican elite partying right before commemorating one of the biggest tragedies in American history.

That’s a bit on the nose for President Trump’s second term, which has seen him focus on lavish, unnecessary projects and celebrations rather than the Americans struggling due to his unnecessary war in Iran and mismanagement of the economy. This convention, much like his Freedom 250 celebrations this summer, will most likely end up being an expensive, sparsely attended dumpster fire benefiting only himself and his wealthy allies.

President Trump has  hailed his takeover of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as an economic boon for the storied venue, claiming the historic theater “would be in financial ruin” without Trump, and that not putting his name on the building would “cause donors to flee.” 

Instead, it’s been a complete bust.

New reporting from The Washington Post shows that the center is on track to fall $100 million short of its profit goal directly because of Trump changing the name to the Trump-Kennedy Center. It expects to miss its budget target by 70 percent and contributed revenue by 25 percent, a projected $23 million deficit. 

“The center took a huge hit when the takeover happened,” an anonymous source close to the situation told the Post. While ticket sales plummeted after Trump’s officials launched their anti-woke takeover at the beginning of his term, things got even worse after the name change last December. “It was just an absolute fiscal cliff. Donors disappeared, ticket sales disappeared, artists disappeared—like it was doomsday.”

This all comes as the center is multiple months late in delivering its independent audit during Trump’s first year of leadership. 

The Trump-appointed Kennedy Center board tried to close the center for two years beginning in July, but that decision was blocked by a U.S. district judge who argued that the board’s decision was “ill-informed and seemingly preordained.” Earlier this month, the board again voted to close the center for two years so that it can renovate the building in Trump’s image—and add Trump’s name back. 

Trump has put this once iconic venue through absolute hell. His initial takeover, fueled by a right-wing spite for “woke” culture, led many high-level acts to cancel and donors and patrons to flee. But the name change—which hasn’t even officially, legally happened—may have been the true coup de grâce.