A former Kennedy Center employee slammed Donald Trump following reports that the president had a “tantrum” during a board meeting after a federal judge blocked his latest effort to add his name to the institution’s building.

Josef Palermo, who was the center’s first curator of visual arts until he was abruptly fired in late March, told MS NOW’s Nicolle Wallace on Wednesday that Trump’s reported behavior was “abhorrent” and an “absolute dereliction of his fiduciary duty” as the board’s chair.

According to Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, an ex officio board member and the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit challenging Trump’s efforts to rename the center, Tuesday’s meeting descended into chaos within minutes. She told MS NOW the president was “hollering and screaming” and called her “dumb” and an “obstructionist.”

Ultimately, on that same call, Trump’s handpicked board voted to close the Kennedy Center, citing financial issues and the need for structural repairs.

On Wednesday’s “Deadline: White House,” Palermo said Trump’s threats to “withhold the renovations unless he gets to engrave his name onto the facade of another man’s memorial” were “abhorrent.”

He said it was the job of Congress, not the president, to oversee the historic arts center.

“The U.S. Congress has always been the one who has jurisdiction over the Kennedy Center,” Palermo said. “It’s extremely unprecedented to have a sitting U.S. president assert this much control over our national cultural center.”

The former Kennedy Center staffer previously told MS NOW that under Trump’s leadership, he witnessed “a pattern of pay-for-play” where “everything that the center did was centered around having a close association” to and “access” to the president.

Palermo said Wednesday that Trump “has a legal and ethical obligation to ensure that the nonprofit that he’s serving doesn’t go bankrupt, and he’s acting in a way that shows he isn’t stepping up to his fiduciary duties, and I think he should be stepping down.”

You can watch Palermo’s full interview in the clip at the top of the page.

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