{"id":212116,"date":"2026-05-30T06:06:59","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T06:06:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/judge-temporarily-halts-kennedy-center-closure-and-orders-removal-of-trumps-name-from-building-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T06:06:59","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T06:06:59","slug":"judge-temporarily-halts-kennedy-center-closure-and-orders-removal-of-trumps-name-from-building-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/judge-temporarily-halts-kennedy-center-closure-and-orders-removal-of-trumps-name-from-building-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge temporarily halts Kennedy Center closure and orders removal of Trump\u2019s name from building – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from closing the Kennedy Center for repairs and ordered the removal of President Donald Trump\u2019s name<\/a> from the building and its website.
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U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled Friday that Trump\u2019s handpicked board<\/a> did not have the authority to rename the facility on its own.
\u201cThe Kennedy Center\u2019s 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\u2019s unilateral say-so,\u201d the judge wrote in his 94-page decision<\/a>, issued on Kennedy\u2019s birthday. \u201cCongress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.\u201d
Trump blasted the ruling in a lengthy post on Truth Social<\/a> and suggested that for now he was washing his hands of the institution he named himself chair of last year.
\u201cI cannot be involved with a situation where danger to the Public is allowed to flourish in plain and open sight. 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 \u2018NEVER NEVER LAND,\u2019\u201d Trump wrote.
\u201cWe 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,\u201d he wrote, adding that he had instructed the Commerce Department to take steps that would give lawmakers \u201cthe responsibility for its Operation, Maintenance, and Management.\u201d
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether Trump, who is named as one of the defendants in the case, would formally appeal Friday\u2019s ruling.
In his ruling, the judge said the administration did not deny the center is legally required to be named after Kennedy but had tried to claim the center had not really been renamed.
\u201cThey instead submit that everything is not what it seems,\u201d Cooper wrote, adding that the administration insisted that calling it the \u201cTrump Kennedy Center\u201d is \u201cmerely a secondary name\u201d rather than a name change.
\u201cThe rechristening is not, as Defendants suggest, like calling the \u2018Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection\u2019 the \u2018Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,\u2019 which is merely a clerical rearrangement,\u201d he wrote.
\u201cThe \u2018Trump Kennedy Center\u2019 label adds an entirely new name to the Center\u2019s formal title and relegates President Kennedy\u2019s name to second place. If that is not a renaming, what is?\u201d Cooper said, noting that the lettering on the building \u201cliterally reads: \u2018The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.\u2019\u201d
The changes, Cooper wrote, \u201creflect far more than an innocuous nicknaming.\u201d
He issued an order giving the administration 14 days to remove Trump\u2019s name from the building and the center\u2019s website.
A spokesperson for the Kennedy Center, Roma Daravi, said in a statement before Trump\u2019s Truth Social post: \u201cWe are confident that on appeal the court will uphold the Board\u2019s will to recognize President Trump\u2019s historic contributions to our nation\u2019s cultural center.\u201d
Cooper also found the board\u2019s vote to shutter the facility for two years for repairs was the result of an \u201cill-informed and seemingly preordained decision.\u201d
The board \u201cbased its decision on an insufficient, one-sided presentation of information and neglected to consider the full range of its statutory obligations and potential adverse consequences of closure on programming and memorial functions,\u201d the judge wrote.
\u201cThe trustees might have assessed the propriety of closure in a number of prudent ways. This was not one,\u201d the judge wrote, issuing a preliminary injunction blocking the center from closing.
During a March vote, the board voted to close the center<\/a> after July 4 for renovations over a two-year period. The decision came after Trump \u2014 who had named himself board chairman last year \u2014 had called for the temporary closure, saying it was the most effective way to carry out the repairs.
The judge said repair work can still be carried out and added that the closure could still happen if the board follows proper procedures.
The \u201cpreliminary injunction will not prevent the Center from moving forward with the capital repair work it has planned, which the record demonstrates is sorely needed. Nor will it categorically prohibit the Board from closing the Center should it come to this decision anew after independently balancing its multiple obligations to the Center in a prudent fashion,\u201d the judge wrote.
Cooper added that the \u201cCourt does not purport to dictate how the Center should be run, nor does it prescribe any particular plan for the institution \u2014 construction, closure, or otherwise \u2014 moving forward. It simply holds the Kennedy Center Board to certain minimum requirements imposed by law. Beyond that, the Court will let the parties play on.\u201d
Daravi suggested in her statement the center would challenge the injunction on the closure as well. \u201cWe will review the decision carefully though the reality remains \u2014 the Center requires an urgent and significant restoration \u2014 a truth that even the plaintiff acknowledges,\u201d she said.
The lawsuit challenging the name change and closure had been brought by Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, who serves as an ex officio member of the center\u2019s board, a position separate from the members selected by Trump.
In a statement, Beatty said the \u201cruling rightly affirms that this administration\u2019s efforts to rename and close the Center have no basis in law.\u201d
\u201cThe Kennedy Center is an institution that belongs to the American people, not to Donald Trump. He has desecrated this sacred memorial for his own vanity,\u201d Beatty said.
Her attorneys, Norm Eisen and Nathaniel Zelinsky, said the \u201cruling sends an important message: the rule of law matters. This is a powerful blow against the Trump administration\u2019s corruption.\u201d
Several members of the Kennedy family last year criticized the board\u2019s vote to include Trump\u2019s name on the center, where it was later affixed.
Robert F. Kennedy\u2019s daughter, Kerry Kennedy, on Friday praised the judge\u2019s ruling and Beatty\u2019s efforts.
\u201cPerhaps I won\u2019t need that pickaxe after all. Thank you, Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, for your courage and dedication to ensuring proper procedures are followed,\u201d she wrote on Facebook<\/a>. \u201cWhat a great way to celebrate you on your birthday, Uncle Jack!\u201d
The addition of Trump\u2019s name to the Kennedy Center is part of an unprecedented wave of presidential branding being carried out in his second term, with the addition of his name to federal buildings, battleships, passports, a drug website and more<\/a>.
On Thursday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said his department was preparing to print $250 bills <\/a>with Trump\u2019s face on them if Congress passes legislation<\/a> to do so.
Gary Grumbach is an NBC News legal affairs reporter, based in Washington, D.C.
Dareh Gregorian is a politics reporter for NBC News.
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

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news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timeA federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from closing the Kennedy Center for repairs and ordered the removal of President Donald Trump\u2019s name from the building and its website.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.U.S. District Judge […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":212117,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-212116","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}