Judge says Trump can’t add his name to Kennedy Center, blocks planned closure

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Friday blocked the Kennedy Center from temporarily closing the cultural and arts venue for a yearslong renovation and said its board violated the law when it added President Donald Trump’s name to the historic landmark.

In the latest legal setback for Trump’s efforts to leave his personal mark on the landscape of the nation’s capital, US District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington, D.C., ruled that the Kennedy Center board’s March 16 vote to close the facility was “ill-informed and seemingly preordained” with no regard for its legal obligations.

Cooper also concluded that the board “overstepped its statutory bounds” by unilaterally adding Trump’s name to the center. "Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,” Cooper wrote in his 94-page opinion.

The judge, who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Barack Obama, ordered the defendants to remove Trump’s name from the institution’s façade and any “official materials,” such as digital or physical signs, within two weeks.

The administration had announced the work would begin in July and last approximately two years, but Cooper’s ruling halts those plans for now.

The decisions are a major victory for Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty, an ex-officio member of the Kennedy Center’s board who sued last year after her fellow board members moved to rename the center. She later revised her complaint after Trump announced plans to shutter the building while a sprawling renovation was undertaken.

“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. “The Kennedy Center is an institution that belongs to the American people, not to Donald Trump.”

Beatty, who represents Ohio, has a seat on the board by virtue of her position in Congress.

Trump signaled shortly after the ruling that he was backing down from his fight to revamp the storied arts center, suggesting he was transferring control to Congress.

“Unless I am free to do what I do better than anyone else, bring this Institution back, physically, financially, and artistically, I have no interest in continuing what could only be a hopeless journey into ‘NEVER NEVER LAND,’” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

“I have instructed the Department of Commerce to make all necessary arrangements with Congress to allow a full and complete transfer of this Institution, giving them the responsibility for its Operation, Maintenance, and Management.”

The details of such a transfer weren’t immediately clear.

Since its founding as a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy, the executive branch has had oversight over the Kennedy Center’s board of trustees while Congress has been responsible for annual appropriations for its operations and maintenance.

In his judgement, Cooper said the center was permanently blocked from “displaying, installing, or maintaining any physical or digital signage on the Kennedy Center building or grounds that designates, suggests, or implies that the institution is named for any person other than President John F. Kennedy.”

The Kennedy Center has already indicated there are plans to appeal the ruling.

“We are confident that on appeal the court will uphold the board’s will to recognize President Trump’s historic contributions to our nation’s cultural center,” Roma Daravi, the center’s vice president of public relations, said in a statement.

Daravi suggested that the Kennedy Center plans to review the judge’s decision on the closure “carefully,” but emphasized that the facility “requires an urgent and significant restoration.”

Trump, who was elected chairman of the board last year, has overseen major programmatic and leadership changes to the center, leading to slumping ticket sales and major artists pulling out of planned appearances, which some saw as driving the desire to temporarily close.

On his watch, his handpicked board of loyalists approved plans late last year to rename the center the Trump Kennedy Center. And then in March, the board voted for the center to close starting July 7 for a planned two-year renovation.

The board’s vote on whether to close the center, Cooper wrote, “was foreordained.” The judge pointed to comments from Matt Floca, who has been put in charge of the center, that appeared to show that he was preparing for the total closure months before Trump announced in February plans to shut the building down.

“Whatever happened during that purported four-month incubation period, board input was, most evidently, an afterthought,” Cooper wrote. “Trustees learned about the plan to close the center at the same time as the general public, by social media post. Deprived of time and information, they had no meaningful opportunity to consider perhaps the most momentous decision in the Center’s lifetime since it opened in 1971.”

“President Trump’s assurance that closure would be ‘totally subject to board approval’ rings hollow, as he himself later admitted that it was ‘a little late for the board’ to weigh in because the plan had already been ‘announced.’ To him, Board approval was just a ‘minor detail,’” the judge added.

Former staffers had expressed grave concerns about the damage closure, including warnings that performers would find alternative venues and won’t return, staff with expertise would be hard to replace, and both audiences and donors would dry up.

“May the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts be renamed absent Congressional authorization? The answer, plain from the face of the statute, is no. Nor can any other individual be memorialized on the front portico of the building,” Cooper wrote.

Trump said the judge “should be ashamed of himself” in a social media post hours after the decision was issued.

Trump has made it a priority of his second term to leave his personal stamp on some of the most historic spots in Washington. He demolished the East Wing of the White House to build a ballroom. His name or image has been added to government buildings, including the US Institute of Peace and Justice Department headquarters. He is pushing for a triumphal arch overlooking the Potomac River.

Opponents have challenged other Trump construction projects in court and won favorable rulings.