WRITING’S ON THE WALL

Desperate Trump Defies Judge in Kennedy Center Vanity Battle

A federal judge ordered the president to remove his name from the storied institution. Trump and his allies have other plans.

Donald Trump and his allies have moved to put the president’s name back on the Kennedy Center and partially close the storied venue for a controversial two-year overhaul.

Despite a federal judge’s order to remove his name, the center’s MAGA-filled board, chaired by Trump, passed a resolution on Thursday to create an inscription honoring the 80-year-old.

The inscription would sit underneath the signage for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, saying: “Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump.”

According to Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, the Democratic board member who has resisted the president’s takeover, a plan was also passed to rename the physical site “The President Donald J. Trump Plaza”.

The aggressive move comes almost eight weeks after the U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ordered the center to remove Trump’s name and all official branding from the building’s facade.

The Obama-appointed judge also temporarily blocked the institution from closing for renovations, writing that the board had an “obligation to both maintain and operate a premier arts venue and its solemn duty to memorialize a fallen president.”

But Trump has been determined to remake the venue in his own image, insisting that it needed to close for two years for “large-scale renovations and construction due to years of neglect, decay, and poor maintenance.”

The former real estate mogul put up a similar case at Thursday’s board meeting, sources say, giving an impassioned speech in which he also talked up his skills as a builder and railed against the ballooning costs of the Federal Reserve’s renovations.

The Trump-stacked board—whose members include Fox News hosts Laura Ingraham and Maria Bartiromo, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, Special Envoy Paolo Zampolli and country crooner Lee Greenwood—also voted on Thursday to close the Kennedy Center’s main building, while the REACH, a newer building at the venue, would remain open for some events.

“Under President Trump’s bold leadership, the Kennedy Center is on its way to becoming the finest cultural institution anywhere in the world,” White House spokesman Liz Huston said.

Zampolli agreed, telling the Daily Beast the board wanted to make the performing arts hub a premier global destination but this would require time and investment.

The former modeling agent, who is often credited with introducing Trump to First Lady Melania Trump, has his own bold vision for the Kennedy Center, which includes Valentino fashion shows, a luxury marina, high-end restaurants, and even a collaboration to send American arts into space.

They were not part of Thursday’s discussions, but he hopes they could be examined “eventually, once the center reopens.”

“Let’s make these things less political and let’s create a great center,” he said.

SHOW ME THE MONEY

Trump Faces New Kennedy Center Humiliation With $17M Lawsuit

Farrah Tomazin

The inscription honoring Trump, first reported by the New York Times and confirmed by the Daily Beast, is the latest attempt to defy the court ruling, but it will still come under the judge’s scrutiny.

“This morning’s decision to close the Center and the surprise agenda item to put Donald Trump’s name back on the building was more of the same,” Beatty said in the statement.

“This latest development is a transparent effort to circumvent the Court’s ruling, and flies in the face of the statutes that Congress passed. I will continue to fight for this treasured national monument.”

The center was named in 1964 when Congress passed laws designating it a “living memorial” to assassinated President John F. Kennedy. Since then, it has been generally understood that the power to change the name lies with Congress.

But in a move that outraged the public and members of the Kennedy family, the board had tried to rebrand the storied institution as the “Trump-Kennedy” Center.

The president’s name was eventually removed from the building in June, using scaffolding and drapes to cover the humiliation. The covering remains in place to this day.

Trump took over the Kennedy Center in February 2025, installing MAGA acolyte Ric Grenell to oversee the institution while criticizing its previous leadership for what he called “woke” programming and mismanagement.

But Grenell was ousted after a tumultuous term, with Trump’s efforts to remake the venue sparking a sustained backlash from artists, donors and performers.

Several prominent artists canceled appearances, while the Washington National Opera announced it would depart the institution altogether, citing the upheaval surrounding the new leadership.

BROKEN RECORDS

Singer Who Quit Kennedy Center Says He Feared ‘Retribution’

Dana Herrnstadt

Singer-songwriter Ben Folds, the former artistic adviser to the National Symphony Orchestra, spoke out against Trump’s takeover at a Congressional hearing last month.

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“I could not trust that artists I booked at the Kennedy Center would be safe from retribution if they said or sung something that might displease the president or his political lackeys who now controlled the Center,” said Folds, who left last year.

“I could not perform my job or the mission I was brought on to do, and for this reason, with great sadness, I had no choice but to resign.”

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Farrah TomazinPolitical Correspondent

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