Workers erect scaffolding at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, US, on Friday, June 12, 2026.
Andrew Leyden | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The Kennedy Center’s board of trustees voted Thursday to inscribe President Donald Trump’s name on its building facade, setting up a renewed legal battle over changes to the Washington, D.C., performing arts facility.
Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, called the new vote “a transparent effort to circumvent” a judge’s order in May that Trump’s name be removed from the Kennedy Center.
Beatty and her lawyers detailed the vote on that and other items in a press release.
“I will continue to fight for this treasured national monument,” said Beatty, whose lawsuit in D.C. federal court led to the order stripping Trump’s name from the center. Trump’s name was removed in June.
The Kennedy Center’s board, of which Beatty is an ex-officio member, voted Thursday to redo the facade so that it would read: “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated By President Donald J. Trump.”
The board, which is heavily stocked with Trump loyalists, also voted to rename the physical site outside the building “the President Donald J. Trump Plaza.”
And the board voted to close most of the facility for two years to allow extensive renovations.
“A federal judge already rejected the board’s unlawful attempt to rename the Kennedy Center, and told Donald Trump’s handpicked board that its last closure vote was ill-informed and preordained,” said the lawyers Norm Eisen of the group Democracy Defenders Action, and Nathaniel Zelinsky of Washington Litigation Group, in a statement.
“Today’s vote is more of the same, and a show of blatant disrespect to the courts,” said the two lawyers, who represent Beatty. “The court already ruled against the board when it bowed to Trump’s demands. Now, the defendants must answer for their actions — again — in court.”
CNBC has requested comment from the Kennedy Center.
The center was renamed the Trump Kennedy Center in December, 10 months after Trump removed several trustees from the board and appointed himself as a trustee.
On May 29, U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper ordered that Trump’s name be removed from the building within two weeks, ruling that “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.”
