Critics Aghast as Trump’s Name Already Added to Kennedy Center: ‘Vandalism,’ ‘Illegal,’ ‘Obnoxious Sh*t’

AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

The announcement that President Donald 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 wall a mere day later.

Shortly after his second inauguration, Trump appointed himself as chair the board for the Kennedy Center, and added several of his allies to the board as well. It’s been a divisive move, with the president’s MAGA supporters cheering his takeover and his critics left disgusted — and ticket sales in a free fall.

On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced that the board had “voted unanimously to rename the Kennedy Center to the Trump-Kennedy Center, because of the unbelievable work President Trump has done over the last year in saving the building.”

Leavitt’s claim of a “unanimous” vote was quickly challenged. Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH) tweeted that she was “muted on the call and not allowed to speak or voice my opposition to this move,” and noted the name change had not been on the agenda. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Rep. Rick Larsen (D-WA) were not present at the meeting and voiced their opposition later in media interviews.

Numerous commentators pointed out that the performing arts center’s name was established by federal law, and therefore — just like the Department of Defense — the name could not be changed without Congress amending the statute.

Nonetheless, witnesses captured photos and video clips of workers installing new lettering on the outside of the Kennedy Center, so that the sign now reads: “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts.”

The new additional text was in a slightly different font than the original lettering.

JFK’s niece Maria Shriver excoriated the signage update in a social media post.

Shriver wrote:

Adding your name to a memorial already named in honor of a great man doesn’t make you a great man. Quite the contrary. Putting your name on top of someone else’s doesn’t mean that people will speak of you in the same breath as the other man. Putting your name above another man’s name on his existing memorial… What is that about? Truly? What’s that about? Do you want people to speak the names as one? Dig down deep. What are you trying to say? I’m really interested. There is no other president who would do this. None. Zero. In fact, it’s not even legal. Congress named the performing arts center as a living memorial in 1964, and only congress can change that law.

This will always be the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Art. A great man would have said to his hand picked board, “Thank you, but the building already has its name. Let it stand. Let it be. I don’t need that.” But then again…

Shriver’s cousin Kerry Kennedy declared she intended to “grab a pickax and pull those letters off that building” as soon as Trump’s presidency ended, and asked her followers for help holding the ladder.

Jim Acosta posted a short video “from the scene of the crime,” commenting that Trump had “vandalized” the Kennedy Center with the name change and disrespected the memorial for Kennedy, who had been assassinated. He added that while the “childish and lawless” Trump administration had “slapped his name on the Kennedy Center,” the “sane, rational” American people “will never call it the Trump Kennedy Center.”

Chris Geidner at Law Dork was on the scene as well, and questioned Matt Floca, the center’s vice president for Facilities and Operations, about the “underwhelming, lawless project.” Floca would not speak on the record; Geidner wrote up the interaction for his Substack. Geidner noted that the “whole effort” was “contrary to law,” and included the full text of the 1964 law signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson honoring Kennedy by renaming the National Cultural Center for him.

A sampling of other reactions:

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