US President Donald Trump has announced he plans to withdraw his leadership from the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, after a federal judge ruled he could no longer have his name on the building.
On Friday, in a 580-word post, Trump blasted Judge Christopher Cooper as reckless. He also painted the performing arts centre as a dilapidated structure only he could restore.
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“Unfortunately, Judge Cooper and the Radical Left would rather see it DIE than have President Trump transform it into something that everyone could be proud of,” Trump wrote, referring to himself in third person.
But Trump’s interventions at the Kennedy Center, a national performing arts centre in Washington, DC, have been 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 into law an act of Congress that established the site as a “living memorial” to the slain leader.
But since starting his second term, Trump has sought to reshape Washington, DC, in his own image, undertaking construction projects and erecting banners with his photograph.
Within weeks of his inauguration, in February 2025, he fired Democratic members of the Kennedy Center’s bipartisan board and replaced them with his picks.
He also terminated the leadership of the centre’s longtime president, Deborah Rutter. The board quickly elected Trump as chair instead.
But some of the biggest backlash came in December, when the board went a step further and voted to rename the building “The Donald J Trump and the John F Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts”.
Within a day, construction crews were seen outside the arts centre, adding Trump’s name to the outside of the edifice.
Critics immediately denounced the effort as a violation of the 1964 law, not to mention a sign of disrespect towards the late Kennedy.
Amid public pressure and a string of cancellations from performers, Trump announced in February he would shutter the arts centre for two years, starting in July. He cited renovations as his rationale for the sudden closure.
US Representative Joyce Beatty, a Kennedy Center trustee, sued to stop the closure from happening. She also sought the removal of Trump’s name.
Inside the court’s ruling
In Friday’s ruling, Judge Cooper — an appointee of former President Barack Obama — sided with Beatty’s requests.
He ordered that Trump’s name must be removed from the theatre’s facade, as well as any other signage or official materials, within 14 days, citing the 1964 law.
“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.
“Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.”
Cooper also overturned the Trump-led board’s decision to strip trustees like Beatty of the right to vote on Kennedy Center matters. Beatty is one of several bipartisan trustees who have a seat on the board by virtue of an act of Congress.
“If trustees presumptively possess the right to vote, what, if anything, authorizes the Board to unilaterally strip certain trustees of voting rights?” Cooper asked in his decision, striking down the Trump-era policy.
“Absent Congressional authorization, the Board may not deprive a duly-appointed Kennedy Center trustee of her right to vote on Board matters on which all other trustees are entitled to vote.”
In the last part of his 94-page decision, Cooper turned his attention to the Kennedy Center’s imminent closure.
He pointed to statements and plans from Trump administration officials touting the use of the performing arts facility before the July closure date, saying they undermined the assertion that the building was somehow hazardous.
“Former Kennedy Center President [Richard] Grenell emphasized that the Center would be one of the ‘premiere spots’ for America’s 250th celebration — quite a concerning idea if the Center is as dangerous as the Defendants now represent,” Cooper wrote, alluding to events scheduled for the coming weeks.
He later added, “Up until February 1, the Center was planning to proceed apace with some form of phased construction and cited no safety concerns about that plan.”
While closing the Kennedy Center is within the board’s powers, Cooper concluded that the board had likely violated its duty to administer the centre “as a prudent person would” under the law.
He therefore issued a temporary injunction against the centre’s closure. “The trustees might have assessed the propriety of closure in a number of prudent ways. This was not one,” he wrote.
Reactions to the ruling
The ruling prompted an incensed rebuttal from Trump on his Truth Social platform. The president pledged to transfer oversight of the facility to Congress, under whose mandate the centre already operates.
“We are going to be working with Congress to transfer this failing Institution back to them so they can make a determination as to what to do with it,” Trump wrote.
He also blasted Cooper as a partisan actor who had treated him “unfairly”, echoing similar criticisms he had levied against other judges.
“Judge Cooper should be ashamed of himself! I cannot be involved with a situation where danger to the Public is allowed to flourish in plain and open sight,” Trump said.
“Unless I am free to do what I do better than anyone else, bring this Institution back, physically, financially, and artistically, I have no interest in continuing what could only be a hopeless journey into ‘NEVER NEVER LAND.’”
Beatty, meanwhile, applauded the ruling as a victory against unchecked power, unfettered by the law.
“The Kennedy Center is an institution that belongs to the American people, not to Donald Trump,” she wrote.
“He has desecrated this sacred memorial for his own vanity. I am proud to have fought for the rule of law and to protect this sacred institution.”
