Judge says Trump can’t add his name to Kennedy Center and blocks planned closure

A federal judge on Friday blocked the Kennedy Center from temporarily closing its doors for a yearslong renovation and said its board violated the law when it added President Donald Trump’s name to the historic performing arts venue.

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US District Judge Casey Cooper concluded that the law establishing the center “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.”

“Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,” Cooper wrote in his 94-page opinion.

Within two weeks, Cooper ruled, officials must remove any signage from the Kennedy Center that includes Trump’s name and update its website to remove all references to the name “Trump Kennedy Center” or the “Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”

He said the center was permanently blocked from “displaying, installing, or maintaining any physical or digital signage on the Kennedy Center building or grounds that designates, suggests, or implies that the institution is named for any person other than President John F. Kennedy.”

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CNN has reached out to the Kennedy Center and White House for comment.

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U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump attend the opening night of 'Chicago' at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, renamed by the Trump administration to The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 31, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci
U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump attend the opening night of ‘Chicago’ at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, renamed by the Trump administration to The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 31, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci
Evan Vucci/Reuters

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Cooper, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, said the center may still move ahead with renovations to the decades-old building and could later decide to close down the center after its board more fully considered the impact such a move would have on its statutory requirement to maintain some programming at all times.

“There is no evidence that the Board took account of its full range of statutory obligations in determining that a wholesale shuttering of the Kennedy Center was appropriate,” he wrote in a lengthy ruling issued Friday. “In short, there is no evidence before the Court that the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees considered how it would accomplish its full legislative mandate during the closure period.”

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This story is breaking and will be updated.

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