A federal judge has blocked Donald Trump from renaming the Kennedy Center the “Trump-Kennedy Center,” nor can the president close it down for repairs.
District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington, D.C. won’t let the president name the iconic performing arts center after himself, noting that Congress made it “crystal clear” that the building is to be named after former President John F. Kennedy, “and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial” based on a “unilateral say-so” from a Trump-appointed board.
“Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,” Cooper wrote in Friday’s injunction.
Hours later, the president wrote a lengthy screed against the decision and the judge on his Truth Social account, saying it would be “impossible” to keep the institution open while construction is ongoing, and that he now has “no interest” in renovations and will instead be “working with Congress to transfer this failing Institution back to them so they can make a determination as to what to do with it.”
The order does not block the Trump administration from moving forward with planned capital repair work, “which the record demonstrates is sorely needed,” Cooper wrote. But the president can’t force the board to close it, he said.
The order also does not block the board from closing the center should it “come to this decision anew after independently balancing its multiple obligations to the Center in a prudent fashion,” Cooper wrote.
The Kennedy Center’s Board of Trustees — which appointed Trump as a member — “was derelict in discharging the full range of its responsibilities to the Center” by agreeing to close it under the president’s request, according to Cooper.
The board based its decision “on an insufficient, one-sided presentation of information and neglected to consider the full range of its statutory obligations and potential adverse consequences of closure on programming and memorial functions,” he wrote.
Earlier this week, the center’s executive director Charles Matthew Floca said that stripping Trump’s name from the building’s facade would cause significant financial damage, arguing the institution’s funding is inextricably linked to the president.
“President Trump’s fundraising on behalf of the Center is exemplified by the tens of millions of dollars already raised,” Floca wrote. “Further, the President has committed to raise $150 billion on its behalf from private donors over the next two years.”
If his name is taken off the building, “that vital fundraising connection will be severed, causing irreparable harm and fundamentally destabilizing the Center’s development efforts, severely impairing its trust-fund artistic programming, and rendering the continuation of ongoing trust-funded operations financially nonviable,” according to Floca.
The ruling follows a December 2025 lawsuit from Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty, who is also an ex officio trustee of the center. She is challenging the board’s decision to permanently add the president’s name to the building, which is set to close on July 4 to “begin Construction of the new and spectacular Entertainment Complex,” according to Trump.
Beatty has labelled Trump’s rebranding a “personal vanity project.”
“I took great pride in taking over a losing Institution, and looked forward to making it into a Great and Prestigious WINNER for Washington, D.C., and indeed, the United States of America,” Trump wrote Friday afternoon.
He continued: “Unfortunately, Judge Cooper and the Radical Left would rather see it DIE than have President Trump transform it into something that everyone could be proud of, much as I have done, in many cases, throughout my life, and recently, with all of the construction, renovations, and “fix ups” that we have completed with the Department of Interior on Waterfalls, Fountains, Monuments, and other things of Beauty that we have brought back to life in a now SAFE AND SECURE, after Record Setting Crime, Washington, D.C., which is thriving like, perhaps, never before!”
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Trump has overseen a dramatic transformation of the nation’s capital with a multi-billion dollar package of gilded renovations and new construction catering to his tastes, from the demolition of the East Wing of the White House for a massive ballroom to plans for the world’s largest “triumphal” arch and an overhaul of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
The White House Rose Garden was torn up to make way for a Mar-a-Lago-like patio area, and an Ultimate Fighting Championship ring is being constructed on the lawn in time for a match next month. The president has also filled the Oval Office with gold details and installed plaques along the outside of the White House walls to honor and demean his predecessors.
“Today’s ruling rightly affirms that this administration’s efforts to rename and close the Center have no basis in law,” Beatty said in a statement after Friday’s injunction.
“The Kennedy Center is an institution that belongs to the American people, not to Donald Trump,” she said. “He has desecrated this sacred memorial for his own vanity. I am proud to have fought for the rule of law and to protect this sacred institution.”
Norm Eisen, co-founder and board member of Democracy Defenders Action and Nathaniel Zelinsky, senior counsel at the Washington Litigation Group, which represent Beatty in the suit, said the ruling “sends and important message.”
“The rule of law matters,” they said. “This is a powerful blow against the Trump administration’s corruption.”
