Roma Daravi
Role at the time: Vice President of Public Relations of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, in a televised interview on Real America's Voice's "Just the News, No Noise"
Statement summary
In a Sept. 16 interview on Real America's Voice's "Just the News, No Noise," Kennedy Center vice president of public relations Roma Daravi said nothing is being demolished. She told viewers to ignore media reports saying otherwise, stating that no one has said that coming from the institution.
“Nothing is being demolished. Ignore the media that is saying that because no one has ever said that coming from the institution. I can promise you that.”
Full-episode upload by the Just the News channel (upload timestamp 2026-09-16 23:33 UTC, 46:54 long) of the Real America's Voice show 'Just the News, No Noise'. Audio downloaded with yt-dlp and transcribed with mlx-whisper (large-v3-turbo on the whole file and on clips; medium.en and small.en on the 32:00-32:20 clip); all runs agree, and a video frame at about 32:05 shows the on-screen lower third 'ROMA DARAVI / Kennedy Center Vice President, PR' with the Real America's Voice and Just the News No Noise logos. Punctuation is the transcriber's. The uploaded file contains the guest segment twice (about 24:28-34:13 and 35:45-45:30). Whisper renders her surname as 'Dharavi' in the host's introduction; the on-screen graphic and CBS's correction note give 'Daravi'.
Why we used this label
The case's fixed reference point is President Trump's stated position that the Kennedy Center's closure and renovation depend on recognition for his administration, as expressed in his Sept. 15 Truth Social post and reaffirmed in his Sept. 16 remarks in Charlotte. Daravi says nothing is being demolished and tells viewers to disregard reports to the contrary, which disputes a description of the situation without saying whether tying the closure or renovation to recognition is justified or wrong. The closest competing label is defends_or_excuses, because she speaks for an institution whose board Trump chairs. That loses because the quoted words consist of her denial and her instruction to disregard the reports, and they do not say that the position or the closure is justified, acceptable or reasonable.