Judge Christopher Cooper Orders Trump’s Name Removed From John F. Kennedy Center

A federal judge blocked President Donald Trump’s effort to transform the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts by ordering that Trump’s name be removed from the center and halting planned closure for a yearslong renovation.

“In a lengthy post on his Truth Social platform, Trump fumed about the Friday decision from U”

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U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper said the law establishing the center “makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board’s unilateral say-so.”

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Trump responded by branding Cooper an “anti Trump Hater” and predicted the center he wanted to shutter for a two-year overhaul will “soon be closed, probably never to open again.”

Cooper also ruled that the board’s March 16 vote to close the venue was “ill-informed and seemingly preordained,” and that the board “overstepped its statutory bounds” by adding Trump’s name to the center.

Within two weeks, Cooper ordered officials to remove signage that includes Trump’s name and update the website to remove references to the “Trump Kennedy Center” and the “Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”

Trump signaled shortly after the ruling that he was backing down from his fight to revamp the arts center, writing that he had instructed the Department of Commerce to make arrangements with Congress for a transfer of responsibility for the institution’s operation, maintenance, and management.

In a statement, Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty said, “Today’s ruling rightly affirms that this administration’s efforts to rename and close the center have no basis in law,” and added that “The Kennedy Center is an institution that belongs to the American people, not to Donald Trump.”

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The Kennedy Center’s vice president of public relations, Roma Daravi, said, “We are confident that on appeal the court will uphold the board’s will to recognize President Trump’s historic contributions to our nation’s cultural center,” while also emphasizing that the facility “requires an urgent and significant restoration.”

Cooper’s opinion described the board’s decision-making as lacking evidence that it considered its full legislative mandate during any closure period, and he wrote that there was “no evidence before the Court that the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees considered how it would accomplish its full legislative mandate during the closure period.”

Cooper left open the possibility that the Kennedy Center could still move ahead with renovations after the board more fully considered its statutory obligations, and he said the center may later decide to close after that review.

The judge also required that the center be permanently blocked from “displaying, installing, or maintaining any physical or digital signage on the Kennedy Center building or grounds that designates, suggests, or implies that the institution is named for any person other than President John F. Kennedy.”

Trump’s Truth Social post tied his legal setbacks to earlier losses, and he argued the center was “rusted, rotted, and rat and bug infested” while insisting the “new Building would have been incomparable.”

The dispute also fed into broader political and legal uncertainty around the center’s governance, including Beatty’s lawsuit after the board moved to rename the center the Trump Kennedy Center and the board’s March 16 vote to close starting July 7 for a planned two-year renovation.

As the court order takes effect, the Kennedy Center’s board and the Justice Department signaled plans to appeal, while Trump said he had “no interest in continuing” unless he was “free” to do what he wanted to do.