US PRESIDENT DONALD Trump announced the Kennedy Center will close down immediately after a judge ruled his name cannot be added onto the famed arts institution\u2019s exterior.<\/p>\n
Shortly after beginning his second term, Trump installed himself as chairman of the centre, which is named in honour of late president John F. Kennedy.<\/p>\n
The board voted in December to call it the \u201cTrump-Kennedy\u201d Center.<\/p>\n
Trump said on social media that the centre\u2019s board voted \u201calmost unanimously\u201d to close for emergency renovations and that it won\u2019t reopen at all if higher courts don\u2019t back the name change.<\/p>\n
He warned the \u201cvery large and complex\u201d repairs at the building in Washington cannot begin until a higher court rules on whether the centre can be renamed after himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the ruling is a negative one, which it should not be, and is not overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Reconstruction and the Renovation of The Kennedy Center will not take place,\u201d Trump said on his Truth Social network.<\/p>\n
US federal Judge Christopher Cooper previously ordered Trump\u2019s name removed from the exterior and overturned the board\u2019s decision to rename the institution.<\/p>\n
Cooper ruled on Tuesday that Trump\u2019s name cannot be added back, rebuking the centre for trying to circumvent his earlier order.<\/p>\n
\u201cSimply put,\u201d wrote Cooper in his decision, the board \u201ccannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress\u2019s blessing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ruling came as the board met to consider a shutdown of the centre, citing fiscal and safety concerns.<\/p>\n
Last month, the board moved forward with a plan to add new signage to the building that would read \u201crenovated and restored by President Donald J. Trump\u201d.<\/p>\n
Cooper said that plan was in violation of his previous ruling.<\/p>\n
Trump and his chosen leaders of the Kennedy Center have argued that its main building, which was constructed in the 1960s, is in a state of dangerous disrepair.<\/p>\n
As evidence of the safety problems, the president pointed to a recent incident in which a piece of the ceiling tumbled to the ground following a storm.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the Building were open, innocent people would have been killed,\u201d he wrote in a post on Truth Social before the judge\u2019s ruling.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Board of The Kennedy Center has strongly voted to save it, and they know I\u2019m the only one who can do so, because I have the ability to raise the money, and the ability to construct \u2013 that few others have,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n
Last month, as part of court proceedings, the Trump administration warned that the centre may need to be demolished if its plans to renovate the building were blocked.<\/p>\n
The venue is well-known for hosting the Kennedy Center Honors each year, a gala that presents lifetime achievement awards to legendary artists, actors and musicians.<\/p>\n
A host of artists cancelled concerts at the venue in response to Trump\u2019s takeover, while US media has reported that Kennedy Center ticket sales have plummeted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US PRESIDENT DONALD Trump announced the Kennedy Center will close down immediately after a judge ruled his name…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[25006,969,42,66781,16720,43,40,38,41,39,25599,14053],"class_list":["post-626424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-arts-and-culture","tag-donald-trump","tag-headlines","tag-john-f-kennedy","tag-kennedy-center","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-us-politics","tag-washington-dc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}