JD Vance booed by crowd at Washington concert

U.S. Vice-President JD Vance waved to a booing crowd at Washington’s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Thursday night, the latest public rebuke of the Trump ally during his leisure time.

Caught on video by a Guardian journalist in the crowd, Vance and his wife, U.S. second lady Usha Vance, were seen sitting on one of the centre’s balconies before a concert by the U.S. National Symphony Orchestra. As the vice-president sipped from a beverage, a rising chorus of boos and whistles filled the concert hall.

Vance then waved and pointed, before exchanging a few words with his wife.

The episode comes less than two weeks after protestors picketed nearby a Vermont ski resort where Vance planned to vacation with his family. In a March 4 post to X, Vance said the family relocated to a separate hotel for privacy reasons, responding to a headline from the New York Post that described him as having moved to an “undisclosed location.”

“These people are such idiots,” he wrote amid a social media row over the incident. “We had a great time during our weekend in Vermont. We barely noticed the protesters and almost everyone we met was kind and generous. And Vermont is beautiful.”

The Thursday booing also comes following the centre’s recent move to elect U.S. President Donald Trump chair of its board and replace its president with Trump ally Richard Grenell.

Named for the late U.S. president John F. Kennedy, the Kennedy Center is a U.S. government institution promoting “world-class art by the artists that define our culture today, delivers powerful arts education opportunities nationwide, and embodies the ideals of President Kennedy in all the Center’s activities provided throughout the living memorial,” the centre’s website reads.

With files from The Associated Press