Judge Blocks Kennedy Center Renovation, Rules Congress Approval Needed to Add Trump’s Name

The Kennedy Center removed references to President Trump from its website on Monday. The action came days before a June 12 deadline set by the center’s general counsel for eliminating all such references. In a memo reported last Thursday, the general counsel instructed staff to update email signatures, letterheads, and other documents immediately.

The memo stated that changes to templates, forms, signage, brochures, and website pages must be completed no later than Friday, June 12, 2026. "To comply with this order, you must immediately change email signatures, letterheads, and other documents to reflect the name such as ‘The John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts,’ or ‘Kennedy Center,’" the memo said.

" The front of the performing arts venue in Washington DC still displayed the name “The Donald J Trump and The John F Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts” as of Monday afternoon.

A man wheeled a garbage bin outside the building on Saturday. S. District Judge Christopher Cooper issued a 94-page opinion last month that held the center’s organic statute requires it to be named for President Kennedy and that only Congress can change the name.

“The Kennedy Center’s organic statute makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board’s unilateral say-so,” Cooper wrote. ” The ruling also temporarily blocked a planned summer closure for renovations approved by the center’s board.

The board had approved President Trump’s $257 million revitalization project that would have shuttered the center for two years.

After the decision, President Trump posted a 578-word statement on social media last month. “I have no interest in continuing what could only be a hopeless journey into ‘NEVER NEVER LAND,’” he wrote.