Norm Eisen Mocks Trump’s Motion to Keep Name on Kennedy Center: ‘Batsh** Crazy’

AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

Lawyer Norm Eisen was among many who reacted with harsh mockery to a motion filed by President Donald Trump’s administration Friday seeking to stop the removal of the president’s name from the Kennedy Center, calling it “batsh** crazy.”

Shortly after his second inauguration, Trump appointed himself to the board for the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, and added several of his allies to the board as well, who then named him chair. It was a divisive move, with the president’s MAGA supporters cheering his takeover, his critics left disgusted, and ticket sales in a free fall.

The announcement last December that Trump’s name would be added to the Kennedy Center sparked swift outrage from members of the Kennedy family and other critics of the president, outrage that spiked after Trump’s name was added to the building’s façade a mere day later. The center’s website, social media, and other digital branding were also updated to say “The Trump Kennedy Center.”

Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH), a board member, objected to the renaming and filed a lawsuit in late December challenging the “illegal renaming,” arguing that “[b]ecause Congress named the center by statute, changing the Kennedy Center’s name requires an act of Congress.” She has been represented by Eisen, along with the organization he co-founded, Democracy Defenders Action, and the Washington Litigation Group.

Last month, Judge Christopher Cooper, an Obama appointee of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, ruled in Beatty’s favor, ordering both the planned closure to be halted and for Trump’s name to be removed from the Kennedy Center.

As the hours have ticked by on Friday, people have been watching the livestream as workers put up scaffolding to remove the letters from the building’s façade and Trump has continued to file motions in an attempt to block the removal.

After Trump’s motion for a stay was denied, the president appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit — with a motion that raised eyebrows, both for its language and the arguments that it presented.

“Donald Trump just filed his emergency stay in the DC circuit to keep his name on the Kennedy Center & it is batsh** crazy,” wrote Eisen. “He clearly wrote big pieces himself.”

The motion, 22 pages plus addenda, is full of parenthetical comments and insults that resemble the tone of many of the president’s social media posts and commentary over the years about his political foes and various grievances.

Beatty is dissed as “a troublemaking appointment, from the beginning of her tenure!” and the motion claimed that the building will “go into financial and structural collapse” if the name change was not allowed to stand.

The motion claimed that the Kennedy Center building was not just “in bad shape, and unsightly to look at, a constant source of conversation within the Washington, D.C., area,” but also experiencing “potentially life threatening structural damage like beams and parking garage ceilings that are rusted, and in serious danger of falling onto people below,” going so far as to claim the structure was at risk of “total collapse!” (Exclamation point in original.)

“No one else other than President Trump would be in the position of both rebuilding the Building, and raising the money for its operation,” the motion added.

The motion also revealed that a change had apparently been made to the Kennedy Center’s bylaws that conditioned any donations to his name being on the center, arguing that removing it meant that “hundreds of millions of dollars, will have to be immediately returned, or not received by the Center”:

Moreover, stripping President Trump’s name from the Center threatens to substantially undermine fundraising and financial viability at the most sensitive point in its history, a time when other such performing arts structures throughout the Country are in serious financial difficulty, many of them, like The Kennedy Center, losing hundreds of millions of dollars per year…

Without the name, “Trump” on the Building, our fundraising will not only come to a halt, but any and all monies raised or committed would be obligated to be returned, refunded, or terminated. The Bylaws of The Trump Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Foundation state, unequivocally: “The Corporation may make donations to the Center in support of its educational, artistic, cultural, and performing arts functions; provided, however, that in so doing, the Board of Directors shall condition such donations to the Center upon the name of the Center remaining unchanged as the ‘Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.’ In the event the Center should at any time remove the name of President Donald J. Trump from its filings, marketing, branding, façade, or any other affiliated location, the Corporation shall recover from the Center the total of all gifts, donations, and contributions made to the Center by or on behalf of the Corporation.” The reason for this clause is that people and companies, who have given, or will be giving, millions of dollars to the Center were only willing to do so with the name “Trump” on the Building.

Eisen had previously tweeted that he had “filed our opposition, fighting for the rule of law & the American people” to oppose Trump’s motion for a stay, and he did not have to wait long. The appellate court ruled in Beatty’s favor and denied Trump’s motion.

Eisen celebrated the decision, calling it “another stay denied in Trump’s desperate effort to keep his name on the Kennedy Center.”

“So far today he’s been rejected by the trial court and the DC Circuit,” he continued. “We are standing by for whatever may come next but he’s losing & just making the spectacle worse for him.”

As Chris Geidner noted, the phrasing of the order makes it more difficult for Trump to get the Supreme Court to intervene, and so the previous order to remove his name remains in effect and the deadline is tonight.

“This is a very smart move from the DC Circuit because DOJ would now have to ask SCOTUS for a stay with a request for a stay pending appeal still pending at the DC Circuit,” wrote Geidner. “It would be an absurdly embarrassing filing from DOJ, and SCOTUS would look like the weakest body ever if they granted it.”

Meanwhile, the workers at the Kennedy Center are continuing their endeavors.

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