Judge denies last-ditch Kennedy Center bid to delay removing Trump’s name
A federal judge Friday denied the Kennedy Center’s last-ditch motion to delay removing President Donald Trump’s name from the performing arts venue, as crews erected scaffolding next to the building less than 12 hours before the court-ordered deadline to do so.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled at 1 p.m. that the Kennedy Center’s lawyers failed to demonstrate they were likely to win their appeal or that the center would suffer “irreparable harm” if Trump’s name were removed.
At 3:46 p.m., Justice Department lawyers representing the center appealed Cooper’s denial, filing an emergency motion for a stay with the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Meanwhile, crews erected scaffolding in front of the building where Trump’s and Kennedy’s names are displayed.
On Thursday night, the center’s lawyers filed the first motion to stay after its board of trustees voted to appeal Cooper’s May 29 ruling.
Removing Trump’s name would be the most tangible setback in the president’s 15-month effort to take over the storied arts institution. On Monday, the center removed “Trump” from the title of its website, restoring it to “The Kennedy Center.” That came four days after the venue’s administration directed employees to erase references to Trump from official center materials—signs, social media accounts, email signatures, webpages, documents and promotional materials.
In February 2025, Trump purged the center’s board of trustees and replaced them with political allies who then elected him board chair. In December, those loyalists voted to rename the venue, and a day later, crews added Trump’s name to the exterior.
Trump claimed that the board’s vote to do so was a surprise, but he had joked about naming the center after himself for months. Within hours his name was on the website, and the next morning the building’s sign read: “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”
Justice Department lawyers representing Trump later acknowledged that, given the speed with which the signage was installed, it had been “prepared and/or purchased prior to the Board’s vote the day before.”
The addition of Trump’s name sparked immediate backlash from the arts community and members of the Kennedy family, who argued that the renaming desecrated a living memorial to the assassinated president. Congress established the center in 1964, two months after Kennedy’s death, designating it “the sole national monument to his memory within the city of Washington and its environs.” Critics noted that under the law creating the institution, only Congress has authority to change the center’s name.
Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), an ex officio board member, sued fellow trustees in December after she was muted during a virtual board meeting when she tried to voice opposition to the name change.
In his May opinion, Cooper ruled that Congress was “crystal clear” in 1964 when it passed legislation changing the name of the National Cultural Center to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, designating it as “a living memorial” to the president who had been assassinated the year before.
“Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name,” Cooper wrote, “and only Congress can change it.”
Jade Tran contributed to this report.
See also:
Judge orders Kennedy Center to remove Trump’s name from building
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