Kennedy Center Board Votes to Add Trump's Name to Building Again

WASHINGTON —

The Kennedy Center's board of trustees voted Thursday to put President Trump's name back on the outside of the performing arts center, more than two months after a federal judge ordered an earlier version of his name removed, according to Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, who sits on the board, and her attorneys.

The board, which Trump filled with allies after taking office last year and which elected him chair, approved adding the phrase "Restored and Renovated By President Donald J. Trump" to the end of the center's official name, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Beatty and her lawyers said in a statement. Beatty said the board also voted to close the building for two years.

A Second Attempt After a Judge's Rebuke

The move is the board's second try at putting Trump's name on the building. Late last year, the board voted to rename the institution "The John F. Kennedy and The Donald J. Trump Memorial Center for the Performing Arts" and placed Trump's name above Kennedy's on the stone facade. Beatty sued, arguing the board had no authority to rename a memorial that Congress created by law.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, an appointee of President Obama, agreed in May. "Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it," he wrote, according to CBS News. Workers removed the metallic letters spelling Trump's name overnight on June 13, after an appeals court declined to let them stay up. The scaffolding and tarp used for that work are still in place, CBS News reported.

Beatty called Thursday's vote "a transparent effort to circumvent the Court's ruling, and flies in the face of the statutes that Congress passed." Her attorneys, Norm Eisen and Nathaniel Zelinsky, said in a statement that "the defendants must answer for their actions, again, in court." White House spokesperson Liz Huston said the Kennedy Center is "on its way to becoming the finest cultural institution anywhere in the world" under Trump's leadership, CBS News reported.

Closure Plan Heads Back to Court

Cooper also blocked the board's earlier plan to shut the center down until 2028, ruling that trustees relied on "an insufficient, one-sided presentation of information" and ignored their legal duties, according to CBS News. The New York Times reported, as relayed by The Guardian, that the board was presented with a 163-page, $250 million renovation plan before Thursday's vote, including new marble floors and acoustical upgrades, with a target reopening of summer 2028. The plan would keep a newer building on the campus, known as the Reach, open as an active memorial to Kennedy while the main building is closed, according to the Times.

The center has until next week to submit its plan to Cooper, who will review whether the board did enough homework before voting, The Guardian reported. Trump reacted to the May ruling by attacking Cooper and threatening to walk away from the center altogether, writing on Truth Social that it would "collapse, both structurally and financially."