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One month after the board of the Kennedy Center voted to add President Donald Trump’s name to the historic building, the board voted on Tuesday to immediately close the performing arts center’s main building for renovations, sources told News.
The vote came an hour after a federal judge blocked the Kennedy Center board from adding a tribute to Trump on the building or site.
Lamenting that the “drama at the Kennedy Center continues” despite a permanent injunction and laws to the contrary, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper said in his ruling Tuesday that the board is engaging in “linguistic gymnastics” to place Trump’s name somewhere on the grounds. And Cooper poked holes in the argument that adding Trump’s name was necessary to secure the financial future of the center.
President Trump, in a social media post following the board’s vote, said the Kennedy Center’s renovation will not take place unless his name is added onto the building.
“The closing will take place immediately, however, the Renovation and Reconstruction, which is a very large and complex job, cannot begin until such time as the D.C. Circuit rules on the Board’s approved name,” Trump wrote. “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.”
Congress has already appropriated more than a quarter billion dollars for the renovation.
Last month, the Kennedy Center board members — who Trump last year replaced with his allies — voted to close the famed cultural institution for a two-year renovation.
Judge Cooper, following a conference Tuesday morning, issued a written order blocking the attempt to add Trump’s name to the building, concluding it violated a previous court order and congressional statute.
“Simply put, Defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’s blessing. The board resolution bucks a federal court order and a statute Congress enacted,” Cooper wrote.
Judge Cooper previously blocked Trump from renaming the Kennedy Center after himself, but the board voted last month to add Trump’s name to the building nonetheless, in order to recognize him as the person who “renovated and restored” the iconic structure.
“Linguistic gymnastics cannot extricate the Kennedy Center’s Board from an operative judicial order or the governing statute it was designed to enforce,” Cooper wrote in Tuesday’s ruling.
Judge Cooper’s ruling blocks the Trump administration from adding Trump’s name to the building — — along the lines of “The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts renovated and restored by President Donald J. Trump” — as well as renaming the site of the center “President Donald J. Trump Plaza.” The judge did not decide about another proposal to say the Kennedy Center is “endowed by the Trump Kennedy Center Fund,” because the money has not yet been raised for the fund.
Cooper also pushed back on the assertion that the future of the Kennedy Center relies on Trump’s fundraising. He noted that Congress also already appropriated $257 million for the center’s renovation, and suggested that the president’s allies manufactured the Kennedy Center’s financial problems.
“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,” Cooper wrote.
Judge Cooper also said that the Kennedy Center has failed to provide any evidence to demonstrate that “current or future donations hinge on President Trump’s name being on the building.”
“The Court may not license a violation of those authorities under threat that some unidentified donors will withhold their largesse if the Board is not allowed to have its way. It can even less reward a decision by Board members, including the Chair, to curb the Center’s fundraising efforts because they cannot abide statutory restrictions on displaying his name,” the ruling said. “Predictions of future actions by the Board in response to being told no therefore cannot concern the Court.”
The Board of Trustees was scheduled to meet Tuesday afternoon, though the Trump administration overnight said the meeting would be “focused exclusively on the necessary closure” of the center, and not on additional ways to honor President Trump. Trustees were expected to vote on a measure declaring that the Kennedy Center’s main building is “unsafe for continued occupancy” and must be closed for a two-year renovation.
Kennedy Center leadership had previously argued that adding the president’s name to the structure would be necessary to save the center from “certain fiscal collapse within weeks.”
“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,” said a resolution initially scheduled to be introduced today before it was delayed for a future meeting.
In their late-night court filing, Justice Department lawyers included an email sent to the board at 7 p.m. Monday by Kennedy Center official Joe LaFauci, indicating that a separate draft resolution proposing ten new ways to honor Trump would not be considered, and that the board “stands by” its earlier vote to recognize the president.
LaFauci in his email said the update to Tuesday’s agenda was due “to the recently exacerbated structural emergencies” at the center, the court filing said.
Late on Monday night, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick separately posted security video of a partial ceiling collapse that occurred during a rainstorm earlier this month. The video shows a chunk of debris crashing onto an empty red carpet.
“If a performance had been underway, patrons could have been killed,” Lutnick said in his post on social media. “People cannot be allowed to go into this building any longer.”
The center voted in December to add Trump’s name on the outside of the building before a federal judge, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, ordered its removal in May.
The board voted 23-3 last month on a resolution to close the facility for two years as part of a $285 million renovation plan, according to a court filing. The board, members of which were largely appointed by Trump, also voted to add Trump’s name back onto the Kennedy Center building as many as two more times, according to the filing.
While Congress already appropriated $257 million for the project, the board has argued that Trump would raise another $100 million for the center.
Programming at the Kennedy Center, which normally funds its operations, effectively ended in early July. Ticket sales had reportedly been dropping off for months prior, following the board’s vote last December to rename the facility. Cooper ruled that move unlawful in May.
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