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President Donald Trump said the board of the Kennedy Center voted Tuesday to shut down the building for “safety reasons,” coming shortly after a federal judge again ruled that the performing arts center was legally
prohibited from adding Trump’s name in any way.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the board of the Kennedy Center agreed “almost unanimously, to close the Building for Safety reasons, and so that it can begin the process of Reconstruction.” The closing will be effective immediately, he said.
However, Trump said, the renovation project “cannot begin until such time as the D.C. Circuit rules on the Board’s approved name. If the ruling is a negative one, which it should not be, and is not overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Reconstruction and the Renovation of The Kennedy Center will not take place.”
Attorneys from the Justice Department will ask for “an expedited appeal” in the matter, according to Trump. The DOJ’s appeal is expected to be filed Friday, CNN reported. A federal judge previously barred the Kennedy Center from shutting down as Trump had wanted for a two-year renovation. “In the meantime, 17 Million Dollars, raised by President Trump, has been put into The Kennedy Center account to keep it afloat,” Trump wrote in the post.
Trump called in to Tuesday’s Kennedy Center board meeting, during which he “screamed” and “berated” U.S. Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), who serves on the board, according to the CNN report. “It was f–king crazy,” a source told the outlet about the exchange between Trump and Beatty.
Beatty had sued the Kennedy Center and Trump over the renaming of the cultural institution. After she won a ruling requiring the center to remove Trump’s name from the façade and other materials, the board in August proposed adding Trump’s name in three other places at the Kennedy Center. In response, Beatty filed an emergency motion to stop the arts center from moving forward with the new plans to add Trump’s name, and a judge granted that request Tuesday.
On Tuesday, Judge Christopher Cooper of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, ruled that the board of the Kennedy Center — which is mostly comprised of Trump loyalists — cannot legally add his name in other places on the building or its grounds.
“Simply put, Defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’s blessing,” Cooper wrote in his decision. “The board resolution bucks a federal court order and a statute Congress enacted.”
In May, Cooper, an Obama appointee, ordered the center to remove Trump’s name from the building. The performing arts center complied with his order, and since then a tarp has covered the front façade.
However, Cooper wrote in the ruling, “the drama at the Kennedy Center continues. Despite the Court’s order, on August 13, 2026, the Board passed a resolution ‘to recognize and honor President Trump’s current and future existential and unprecedented contributions to the survival of the Center’ in three different ways.”
Per the board’s resolution, on the façade 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 granted the motion filed by Beatty, writing that she is “entitled to enforcement of the Court’s injunction, which reflects Congress’s decision to memorialize President Kennedy, and no one else, at the Center bearing his name.” A copy of the decision is available at this link.
In his ruling earlier this spring, Cooper also granted Beatty’s request for a preliminary injunction to block Trump from taking any further steps to close the institution. Trump had previously proclaimed that the Kennedy Center would shut down for two years starting July 4, 2026, to undergo a “complete rebuilding.”
Trump, in a post earlier Tuesday on Truth Social, said the Kennedy Center was in a dangerous state of disrepair. “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!” he wrote.
Variety has reached out to reps from the Kennedy Center for additional information and comment.
