President Donald Trump announced plans to pull leaders from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts after a federal judge ruled that his name can no longer be listed on the center.
On Friday, President Trump accused Judge Christopher Cooper of being reckless in a 580-word post. He also depicted the Performing Arts Center as a dilapidated structure that only he could repair.
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“Unfortunately, Judge Cooper and the radical left would rather see this system disappear than have President Trump transform it into something we can all be proud of,” Trump wrote, speaking of himself in the third person.
But President Trump’s intervention at the Kennedy Center, the national performing arts center in Washington, D.C., was controversial from the start.
Construction on the building began in 1964, shortly after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
That year, his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, signed an act of Congress establishing the site as a “living memorial” to the slain leader.
But since the start of his second term, Trump has sought to remake Washington, D.C., in his image, initiating construction projects and erecting banners featuring his photo.
In February 2025, within weeks of taking office, he removed the Democrats from the Kennedy Center’s bipartisan board of directors and replaced them with ones of his own choosing.
It also removed the leadership of the center’s longtime president, Deborah Rutter. The board quickly elected Trump as chairman in his place.
But the biggest backlash came in December, when the board decided to go a step further and rename the building the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Performing Arts Center.
Later that day, construction workers appeared outside the arts center and Trump’s name was added to the outside of the building.
Critics immediately denounced the effort as a violation of the 1964 law, not to mention an expression of disrespect for the late Kennedy.
Amid public pressure and performer cancellations, President Trump announced in February that the arts center would be closed for two years starting in July. He cited renovations as the reason for the sudden closure.
U.S. Representative Joyce Beatty, a trustee of the Kennedy Center, has filed a lawsuit seeking to block the closure. She also asked for Trump’s name to be removed.
Breakdown of court decisions
In Friday’s ruling, Judge Cooper, appointed by former President Barack Obama, upheld Beatty’s request.
Citing a 1964 law, he ordered that Trump’s name be removed from theater facades, other signage and official materials within 14 days.
“The Kennedy Center’s statutes make clear that the Center is named for President Kennedy and cannot bear any other official name or public monument based on a unilateral decision by the Board of Directors,” Cooper wrote.
“The Kennedy Center’s name was given by Congress, and only Congress can change its name.”
Cooper also reversed the Trump-led board’s decision to strip Beatty and other trustees of their right to vote on Kennedy Center issues. Mr. Beatty is one of the nonpartisan directors who serve on the Board by act of Congress.
“If the board has presumptive voting rights, what does it mean if it gives the board the power to unilaterally disenfranchise certain board members?” Cooper asked in his decision, criticizing Trump-era policies.
“Unless authorized by Congress, the Board may not deprive a duly appointed Kennedy Center Director of the right to vote on Board matters on which all other Directors are entitled to vote.”
In the final part of his 94-page decision, Cooper drew attention to the Kennedy Center’s impending closure.
He pointed to statements and plans by Trump administration officials to promote the use of the performing arts facility before its July closure date, saying it undermines the argument that the building is somehow unsafe.
“Former Kennedy Center Director (Richard) Grenell has emphasized that the Center will be one of the ‘top spots’ for America’s 250th anniversary celebrations. If the Center is as dangerous as the defendants currently represent, that is a deeply concerning thought,” Cooper wrote, referring to events scheduled in the coming weeks.
He later added, “Up until February 1st, the center had plans to move forward quickly with some phased construction, and there were no safety concerns about that plan.”
Mr. Cooper concluded that although closing the Kennedy Center was within the board’s authority, the board likely breached its duty under the law to manage the center “in a prudent manner.”
So he issued a temporary restraining order against the center’s closure. “While the trustees may have assessed the appropriateness of closure in a variety of prudent ways, this was not one,” he wrote.
reaction to the verdict
The ruling prompted a heated response on President Trump’s Truth Social platform. The president has promised to transfer oversight of the center to Congress, which already operates under its authority.
“We will work with Congress to return this broken system to Congress so they can decide what to do with it,” Trump wrote.
He also accused Cooper of being a partisan actor who treated him “unfairly,” echoing similar criticisms Cooper has made of other judges.
President Trump said: “Judge Cooper should be ashamed! I have no place in a situation where there is an open danger to the public.”
“Unless I am free to do what I do better than anyone else and physically, financially, and artistically reclaim this facility, I have no interest in continuing this desperate journey to ‘NEVER NEVER LAND.'”
Mr Beatty, meanwhile, hailed the ruling as a victory against unchecked power.
“The Kennedy Center belongs to the American people, not Donald Trump,” she wrote.
“He desecrated this sacred monument for his own vanity. I am proud to have fought for the rule of law and to protect this sacred institution.”
