LIVE STREAM: Workers Begin Removing Trump’s Name From Kennedy Center

Workers in Washington, D.C. have begun the process of removing President Donald Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center after a judge’s order.

By statute, the official name of the venue is the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which was created to serve as a “living memorial” to the slain 35th president. However, in December, the center’s board, packed mainly with Trump loyalists, voted to rename the building The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.

But on May 29, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled in favor of Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH), a member of the Kennedy Center’s board, who sued over the addition of Trump’s name and the president’s two-year closure of the venue.

“The Kennedy Center’s organic statute 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. Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,” Cooper wrote in his decision.

Per the order, Trump’s name must be removed by Friday, June 12. On Thursday, the Trump administration and the board filed an appeal to Cooper, who refused to stay his own ruling.

As of 6:00 p.m. ET on Friday, workers had erected scaffolding at the center in anticipation of removing Trump’s name.

The day after Cooper’s initial ruling, the president fumed on Truth Social and canceled an America 250th celebration that was to take place at the Kennedy Center.

“Cancel it,” Trump wrote, “just like I canceled my involvement with the failing and unsafe to be in Kennedy Center, because a Highly Conflicted, Crooked Federal Judge, said that I should not be allowed to spend my time and money in order to MAKE THE CENTER GREAT AGAIN, actually, far greater than it ever was before! It would have also been nice to see a Republican/Democrat union bring it back to life.”

Trump also lashed out at Cooper.

“Judge Cooper also stated that the highly prestigious Board of the Center was not authorized to add on the name ‘TRUMP’ despite the fact that hundreds of millions of dollars of my time and money will be necessary for its successful reincarnation,” he said.

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