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The Kennedy Center’s board didn’t vote to put Donald Trump’s name back on the building once last week. It voted to put it there three times.
A copy of the board’s resolution, filed in federal court late Tuesday and first reported by Deadline, spells out a layered set of designations for the Washington, D.C. performing arts complex. Trump’s name would return to the front facade beneath the center’s official name, on a new line reading “Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump.” A third line – “Endowed by the Trump Kennedy Center Fund” – would be added once a $100 million threshold is reached for an endowment the board established.
Stacked, the facade would read “The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump Endowed by the Trump Kennedy Center Fund.”
The resolution goes further still, designating “the physical site and grounds upon which the center sits” as the “President Donald J. Trump Plaza.”
The board, chaired by Trump, voted in December to add his name to the center; the facade was altered the following day to read “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.” Rep. Joyce Beatty (DOH), an ex officio board member, sued, and in May U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled that only Congress can change the center’s name. The lettering came down overnight behind scaffolding and a tarp that has stayed up ever since.
Beatty’s attorneys, Nathaniel Zelinsky and Norm Eisen, told the court the board appears intent “on defying the court’s decision,” writing that adding the words “Restored and Renovated by” or “Endowed by” before Trump’s name “provides no lawful basis to ignore this Court’s decision and impose Donald Trump’s name on a memorial dedicated by the Congress exclusively to a different President.” They also cited a statute barring additional memorials or plaques in the center’s public areas.
The center has agreed not to install the new designations before September 8, and Beatty’s team has asked Cooper to rule by then. Center attorneys attribute the lingering tarp to construction safety and marble facade repairs; Beatty’s lawyers call that “pretextual.”
The board also voted again last week to close the complex for two years for renovations, keeping limited programming at The Reach. Cooper had blocked an earlier closure plan in May, finding the board “derelict” in weighing the consequences for programming and the center’s memorial function. The center is appealing that ruling.
