{"id":224773,"date":"2026-09-19T17:44:19","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T17:44:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trumps-battle-to-rename-the-kennedy-center-has-put-its-future-at-risk-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T17:44:19","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T17:44:19","slug":"trumps-battle-to-rename-the-kennedy-center-has-put-its-future-at-risk-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trumps-battle-to-rename-the-kennedy-center-has-put-its-future-at-risk-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s battle to rename the Kennedy Center has put its future at risk – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

The president has threatened to block renovations and suggested the landmark could be demolished after courts ruled against his bid to rename it
It was born with the world premiere of Leonard Bernstein\u2019s Mass. \u201cYoung people will come here and they will see this cultural centre,\u201d Rose Kennedy, the mother of slain US president John F Kennedy, said at that opening night gala<\/a>. \u201cThey will carry some of these ideas back to their different communities.\u201d
More than half a century later, the potential death knell came just after 4.30pm on Tuesday with a perfunctory announcement<\/a> on the public address system: \u201cThe centre is now closed to the public. Please exit the centre by way of the Hall of States.\u201d Soon barricades had been erected and security guards were blocking access.
The John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts<\/a> in Washington DC, once filled with the buzz of audiences and children, had fallen as silent as a mausoleum. Now a high stakes legal battle is under way to prevent Donald Trump from taking a wrecking ball to the building that is both national arts complex and living memorial to the 35th president.
The current White House occupant, incensed that courts have prevented his name being added to the Kennedy Center, told reporters this week: \u201cI think that the Trump administration<\/a> should certainly have recognition. Because frankly, if we don\u2019t do that, it\u2019s going to close. It\u2019ll end up being ripped down.\u201d On social media, Trump declared the venue \u201cdestined to doom\u201d without his intervention.
The once unthinkable threat became more thinkable when an Agence France-Presse photographer took a picture of Trump<\/a> aboard Air Force One, holding a placard with ominous red text: \u201cKennedy Center DEMOLIS…\u201d The rest of the word was obscured by the plane\u2019s window frame. Below was a big picture showing a yellow heavy construction vehicle scooping rubble from a torn-down building.
Trump has no legal right to demolish the facility, which was established by Congress. Critics say he is acting out of spite because he cannot get his way. Kerry Kennedy<\/a>, the former president\u2019s niece , said: \u201cLike a child who can\u2019t play with a toy, he wants to stomp on the toy. But this is not a toy. This is the living memorial to a slain president.
\u201cIt would be like adding the Trump name to the Trump-Lincoln Memorial or the Trump-Jefferson Memorial or Trump-Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The courts have spoken, he cannot demolish it, he cannot put his name on it and he should be focused instead on his job.\u201d<\/em>
The Kennedy Center did not respond to requests for comment.
The 100ft structure opened in 1971 on the banks of the Potomac River. Since then it has presented ballet, children\u2019s theatre, comedy, contemporary dance, hip-hop, jazz, international festivals and educational programmes. The annual Kennedy Center Honors<\/a> have hosted past presidents and a who\u2019s who of US arts and culture.
Trump seized control of the facility<\/a> in February 2025, claimed its finances were in dire straits and fired board members who did not align with his \u201cvision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture\u201d. Deborah Rutter, the centre\u2019s president, was ousted and replaced by Ric Grenell, a Trump loyalist and former ambassador with no experience in arts management.
An initiative created in 2020 to promote anti-racism and community outreach was shut down and its 10-person staff dismissed. Citing \u201cdrag shows specifically targeting our youth\u201d, any programming perceived as \u201cwoke\u201d was purged. It was a commercial disaster as audiences, performers and philanthropists deserted the centre in droves.
Lawyer Norm Eisen, who has litigated against the administration\u2019s attempts to impinge on institutional independence, said: \u201cHe slapped his name on there and destroyed the lifeblood of the Kennedy Center: audience and artists.\u201d
In January, the Kennedy Center hosted the world premiere of Melania, a documentary about the first lady<\/a>, with the Trumps in attendance. Three days later, the president announced that he would be closing the facility for two years for $257m repairs and renovations.
The Trump-appointed board backed the move and also voted to rename the venue the \u201cTrump-Kennedy Center\u201d. Trump\u2019s name was duly added to the exterior marble facade, before the US district judge Christopher Cooper intervened and ruled that only Congress has the authority to rename the memorial. The name was removed but the result remains hidden by giant scaffolding and tarpaulins.
Asked about Trump\u2019s motivations, Eisen of Democracy Defenders Action<\/a> added: \u201cYou would need an authority in abnormal psychology to get the answer to that question but he appears to have developed an obsession because he\u2019s not used to hearing the word no.\u201d
On Tuesday this week, Judge Cooper again ruled that the Trump administration could not put a new Trump sign on the Kennedy Center\u2019s facade or rename its plaza for the president \u201cwithout Congress\u2019s blessing\u201d.
Hours later, the centre\u2019s board voted to close the facility for two years, citing the need for $257m of repairs and renovations. The centre\u2019s executive director, Matt Floca, ordered an immediate seven-day emergency closure, citing \u201cacute risks to public safety resulting from continued structural deterioration\u201d.
But Democratic congresswoman Joyce Beatty and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse allege that the closure is a \u201cpretext\u201d to hide a financial \u201cdeath spiral\u201d caused by artist boycotts and dwindling ticket sales.
In an interview on Friday, Whitehouse, the top Democrat on the environment and public works committee and an ex-officio member of the Kennedy Center board of trustees, said the events represented three phases of Trump\u2019s assault on the complex.
\u201cOne is what I call the mob bust out gone wrong, in which they tried to take over and run the Kennedy Center, give themselves and their friends big contracts<\/a>, charge expensive goodies to Kennedy Center accounts, do political favours using Kennedy Center facilities for Trump allies, and that was extremely damaging to the business of the centre,\u201d he said.
\u201cThen they moved into the renaming fiasco and that seems to have struck a lethal blow to the centre\u2019s business model \u2013 a predictably damaging blow that they failed to consider at all. Now they\u2019ve moved into a third stage in which they are threatening the actual destruction of the Kennedy Center if they don\u2019t get their renaming.\u201d
Whitehouse added: \u201cIt has gone from bad to worse but the through line in all of this is that these trustees are under a legal duty to put the welfare of the centre itself first and, if they fail in that duty, they create a legal environment in which courts can and ultimately likely will step in to make sure that the centre is run lawfully.\u201d
The legal battle intensified on Thursday, when Judge Cooper issued an order requiring the Kennedy Center to give at least 30 days\u2019 notice<\/a> before making any major physical changes to the building, including demolition.
Whitehouse said: \u201cThere\u2019s a contrast between the thuggery and bullying world in which you could countenance a threat to tear down the Kennedy Center if your name doesn\u2019t go on it and the actual legal world in which actions have to be approved by a board that has a fiduciary duty to put the welfare of the institution first. Those two are irreconcilable at this point.\u201d
Still, Trump ordered the demolition of the White House East Wing to make way for a ballroom, despite opposition from preservationists and questions over the administration\u2019s authority to proceed without Congress. He is now threatening to cancel the renovation of the Kennedy Center, and warning of its possible demise, if his name is not restored to the building.
Chris Raleigh, an organiser the Hands Off the Arts<\/a> movement, which is mobilising grassroots resistance, said: \u201cThat\u2019s what you do when the hostage takers can\u2019t get what they want. There comes a point where the hostage is inconvenient. Look at it: the people who have fought back have pushed Trump to the brink here.
\u201cIn no way at all is he winning. His name is not going up on the building. There is somebody in the White House every day who says, before they walk in that building, \u2018Oh god, please don\u2019t let there be another Kennedy Center story today.\u2019\u201d<\/em>
Raleigh added: \u201cEveryone in Trump\u2019s life should be telling him: \u2018You gotta to get out now. This is not going to help you.\u2019\u201d
And even if the current peril passes, it will be difficult to restore the centre to its former glories. On Friday it laid off about a dozen staff, the Washington Post newspaper reported<\/a>.
Michael Kaiser<\/a>, who led the centre from 2001 to 2014, warns that even a two-year closure will be damaging. He said: \u201cWhen you don\u2019t have audiences and you don\u2019t have donors participating for two years, those individuals go elsewhere. When you have no staff, even if there\u2019s a time in the future where we can return to a more sense of being normal, it\u2019s not going to be so simple to reopen a building of this size and complexity.\u201d
Some critics see the attack on the Kennedy Center as part of a broader assault on institutions and freedom of expression. On Friday, Trump announced that the media outlets CNN, MS Now and Politico would be banned from the White House<\/a> and, with health secretary Robert Kennedy Jr standing behind him in the Oval Office, railed against the Kennedy Center again.
To Kerry Kennedy, who has worked in the human rights arena for 45 years<\/a>, the president is a \u201cpetty tyrant\u201d. Asked to consider the possibility of the Kennedy Center being lost, she reflected: \u201cIt would be devastating for my family because we love Uncle Jack but in the end Trump is not going to hurt my family. He is hurting our country and he\u2019s hurting our world and he\u2019s giving permission to tyrants everywhere to shut down arts centres and silence critical voices.\u201d
On Friday evening thousands of protesters gathered outside the Kennedy Center in view of the marble facade that remained concealed by scaffolding and tarpaulins. The speakers included a drag queen.
Against the setting sun, protesters beat drums and waved signs that read: \u201cKeep your tiny hands off our Kennedy Center\u201d; \u201cYou\u2019re no Jack Kennedy\u201d; \u201cOur center not DJT\u2019s\u201d; and \u201cWicked starring DJT\u201d.<\/p>\n

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The president has threatened to block renovations and suggested the landmark could be demolished after courts ruled against his bid to rename it It was born with the world premiere of Leonard Bernstein\u2019s Mass. \u201cYoung people will come here and they will see this cultural centre,\u201d Rose Kennedy, the mother of slain US president John […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":224774,"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":["post-224773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224773","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=224773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}