A federal judge’s attempts to micromanage, personally, the restoration and maintenance work at the federal facility in Washington known as the Kennedy Center have been rebuffed by the board assigned to run the property.
The board voted to recognize President Donald Trump’s work to improve the location, and then to shut it down for two years for the repairs to be made without endangering the public.
Largely similar actions had been adopted by the board earlier, but Christopher Cooper, a judge owing his job to Barack Obama, ordered Trump’s name be barred from the building, and that the board had to run it for events even during reconstruction.
The judge admitted at the time he wasn’t sure about the best way to handle the renovations.
But he claimed, “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name and only Congress can change it.”
The board found a simple workaround, announcing that the inscription would be altered to state that it is the Kennedy Center, “restored and renovated by President Donald J. Trump.”
Further the plaza where the building sites now will be Trump plaza.
A report at the Hill said the board earlier had added Trump’s name to the title of the center, but that was reversed on Cooper’s orders.
Board members also decided that the two-year closure was the best way to handle major repairs.
Trump had fired members of the center board last year and named his own appointees.
The objections to the board’s earlier plans were raised by Rep. Joyce Beatty, a Democrat from Oregon, who sued.
Beatty, on hearing the new decision, claimed it was an attempt to “circumvent” the court, and “flies in the face of the statutes that Congress passed.”
The center also has appealed the judge’s demands, so his ruling may eventually be inapplicable anyway.
The Kennedy Center board voted on Thursday to return Donald Trump‘s name to the front of the complex, amid a judge’s order that only Congress could change the official designation of the arts institution https://t.co/l2DxEjFTce
— Deadline (@DEADLINE) August 13, 2026
The Kennedy Center board voted to put President Donald Trump’s name back on the building’s facade and to shut the main Kennedy Center building for roughly two years as part of a $250 million renovation planhttps://t.co/k3YFx799Qg
— KSNV News 3 Las Vegas (@News3LV) August 13, 2026
BREAKING: Kennedy Center board votes to partially close arts center during renovations and add Trump’s name to the building again. https://t.co/Sa0OH9shFR
— NBC News (@NBCNews) August 13, 2026
Cooper has a long history of antagonism toward Trump, and his micromanagement of the naming of the building, which is badly in need of major repairs, follows suit.
