Kennedy Center Tells Judge it Won’t Restore Trump’s Name to Building — For Now

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President Donald Trump’s name will not be returning to the Kennedy Center — at least for now.

The embattled arts center told a federal judge Tuesday it would not restore Trump’s name to the Washington D.C. building’s facade before Sept. 8 at the earliest, according to the Associated Press.

The latest twist in the ongoing legal drama surrounding the center comes as the facility’s board voted last week to again put Trump’s name on the building, despite an ongoing court case which saw a judge order the center to remove the name — and prompted hours of drama with scaffolding, tarps and last-minute appeals. 

Lawyers for Kennedy Center board member Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH), who sued in December to challenge what she called the “illegal renaming,” told the court they feared the center’s Trump-aligned board was “intent” on restoring Trump’s name.

There is “every reason to believe that Defendants will attempt to effectuate some or part of this latest unlawful resolution at the earliest opportunity after September 8,” they said in the joint status report, while pushing U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper for a decision in the case.

After its defeat in court on the naming issue, the board voted to close the center for renovation and add a plaque with an inscription crediting Trump with restoring the facility, according to reports.

“It has become clear that Defendants are maintaining scaffolding and a tarp to cover the Kennedy Center’s façade to frustrate the intent of the Court’s order that the Center be returned to a memorial exclusively honoring President Kennedy,” Beatty said in the report, adding:

It bears emphasis: On the law, the latest renaming resolution is a breathtaking act of defiance. Adding the words “Restored and Renovated by,” or “Endowed by,” before President Trump’s name, and renaming the ground on which the building sits, provides no lawful basis to ignore this Court’s decision and impose Donald Trump’s name on a memorial dedicated by the Congress exclusively to a different President.

Beatty’s lawyer, Norm Eisen, slammed the center’s latest bid to inscribe Trump’s name on the building.

“Only Congress can rename the Kennedy Center, and a federal judge said so in May,” he wrote on X. “The board’s answer is to chisel Trump’s name one line lower & call it a renovation credit.”

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