A federal judge has again weighed in on the Kennedy Center‘s effort to brandish Donald Trump‘s name on the complex, blocking the institution from inscribing his name on its facade and designating its grounds for him.
“Simply put, Defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’s blessing,” U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper wrote in a ruling on Tuesday.
Last spring, Cooper ruled that the center had to remove Trump’s name from the building and other materials. The board, dominated by the president’s supporters, voted to designate the center as the “Trump Kennedy Center” months earlier. Since complying with his order, a tarp has covered the front facade and its official designation, The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Arts.
Read the judge’s order on putting Trump’s name on the Kennedy Center.
In August, the board voted for a new proposal, one that would add Trump’s name as many as three times to the complex.
On the facade, below its official name, “The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts,” there would be an additional line reading “Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump.”
The board also voted to designate “the physical site and grounds upon which the center sits” as the “President Donald J. Trump Plaza.”
Cooper did not rule on another proposal adopted by the board to add another line on the facade, reading, “Endowed by the Trump Kennedy Center Fund.” Such a designation is contingent on $100 million being raised for the endowment, and the judge ruled that because such an inscription is not about to happen imminently, the court “need not settle now whether it violates the permanent injunction.” But he expressed skepticism that even that inscription would be allowed, writing that it “appears to be another verboten memorial.” He required the center to give him at least 60 days notice before installing the inscription.
The Kennedy Center is appealing the judge’s original ruling, which also prohibited the institution from embarking on a plan to close for two years for renovations. Cooper did not bar the center from closing, only that the board had to give a fuller consideration of the impact of such a shutdown.
In August, the board adopted a new plan to close much of the complex for the renovations, while programming would still take place at The Reach, an extension of the center that opened in 2019. But that venue is only capable of hosting smaller productions, not Broadway scale shows or the National Symphony.
On Tuesday, the board was expected to meet to consider a new resolution that would immediately close the main building. The resolution cited a recent incident in which a portion of the center’s ceiling collapsed following a rainstorm.
Board members also were given a draft resolution that presented ten naming proposals for Trump, with an added sense of urgency: The center, it said, was facing financial ruin, and the president has offered to “step in and raise the necessary funds to keep the Center from bankruptcy during its much needed renovation.” The resolution added that the board “is seeking to appropriately recognize and acknowledge President Trump for his well timed proffer of fiscal rescue. The Board understands that without such appropriate recognition it is unlikely that President Trump will provide the fundamental oversight of the renovation of the main building and lead the fiscal rescue of the Center.” The center’s attorneys indicated that the new naming proposal would not come up at Tuesday’s meeting, but that it would focus on closure plans.
The acknowledgement that the center has run into financial difficulties is not a surprise: There has been little major programming since July. But ticket sales also fell last year, when Trump took control of the center, installed his own board members and president, and ensured that he would become its chairman. He also ousted the previous chairman, David Rubenstein, who had been one of the center’s largest benefactors. After Trump’s name was added to the complex, a number of artists backed out of performances in protest.
In his latest ruling, the judge accused the DOJ attorneys representing the center of playing “word games,” concluding that Congress designated the complex solely as a memorial to Kennedy. The law prohibits “additional memorials or plaques in the nature of memorials . . . in the public areas of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.”
The judge wrote that “common sense dictates that the words ‘renovated and restored by President Donald J. Trump’ establish a memorial.”
He wrote that his injunction “does not just prohibit the Board from renaming the institution the ‘Trump Kennedy Center.’ It also enjoins the creation of any ‘public memorial’ to anyone or anything other than President Kennedy, except in a few statutorily delineated ways that are not relevant here.”
The judge also concluded that renaming the grounds also would violate the law’s designation for Kennedy.
“Congress surely did not intend for the Board to auction off naming rights to constituent parts of the campus,” he wrote.
Cooper also responded to the center’s claims that having Trump’s name inscribed was critical to raising money for the center, and potentially saving it from ruin. He noted that the center’s attorneys had lacked evidence for that contention, and “evidence before the Court pointed in the opposite direction: The renaming of the Center coincided with declines in revenue and contributions, as artists cancelled performances, the Washington National Opera ended its 50-year residency, and ticket sales and viewership of the Kennedy Center Honors broadcast dropped precipitously”
Trump posted on Truth Social after the latest decision that the center is in “virtual state of collapse.” “The Judge has made us keep it open even though there are no performances, and no people that would have the Courage to even go in. The Board of The Kennedy Center has strongly voted to save it, and they know I’m the only one who can do so, because I have the ability to raise the money, and the ability to construct — that few others have. I also have the strength and power of the Presidency, which will be needed do what must be done, and give it a strong shot at Greatness again! Remember, The Kennedy Center was losing Hundreds of Millions of Dollars when I took over. It was failing badly! It had nothing to do with me, I am only there to help. I just got there to reveal the facts, but especially those concerning Building Safety. A very hostile and conflicted Judge (What else is new?) seems like he won’t let that happen, in which case, unfortunately, the Building is destined to doom. Isn’t that too bad? We have already wasted more than 6 months ‘playing around’ in Court.
