{"id":474930,"date":"2026-06-13T05:45:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T05:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/474930\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T05:45:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T05:45:11","slug":"judge-denies-last-minute-request-to-keep-trumps-name-on-kennedy-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/474930\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge denies last-minute request to keep Trump’s name on Kennedy Center"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Kennedy Center<\/a> was running out of options Friday evening (local time) to keep US President Donald Trump’s name on the fa\u00e7ade of the iconic performing arts venue.<\/p>\n

A judge earlier in the afternoon rejected a request to pause a court-ordered deadline of Friday to remove references to Trump from the building and other aspects of the Kennedy Center’s operations. The institution appealed that ruling, an effort that was also rebuffed Friday evening.<\/p>\n

Scaffolding was erected earlier in the day around a section of the building that includes Trump’s name. After a round of storms passed Friday evening, multiple workers were back at the scene further building out the scaffolding in an apparent effort to prepare for removing the letters referencing the president.<\/p>\n

After ignoring the Kennedy Center for much of his first term, Trump has wielded tremendous influence over the venue during his return to office. <\/p>\n

Just a month into his second term, he ousted the centre\u2019s previous leadership and replaced it with a board of trustees that named him chairman. Trump’s name was quickly added to the building.<\/p>\n

\"President<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, June 3, 2026, in Washington. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

In his ruling that only Congress could make changes to the Kennedy Center’s name, US District Judge Christopher Cooper also blocked the administration from closing the cultural and arts venue for major renovations that had been planned to start in July and last for two years.<\/p>\n

The Kennedy Center’s leadership argued in its appeal Friday that the renovation was badly needed and accused the lower court, in terms that seemed similar to Trump’s speech patterns, of interfering in the effort.<\/p>\n

“The District Court is not allowing us to close in order to properly fix up and repair the Building, including potentially life-threatening structural damage like beams and parking garage ceilings that are rusted, and in serious danger of falling onto people below,” according to the appeal. “Indeed, total collapse!”<\/p>\n

Even as the Kennedy Center has fought efforts to remove Trump’s name from the building, it has taken steps to comply with Cooper’s initial ruling.<\/p>\n

A June 4 memo to staff from the Kennedy Center\u2019s Office of General Counsel said email signatures, letterhead and other documents must reflect the name as The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts or Kennedy Center.<\/p>\n

The Kennedy Center\u2019s website has dropped Trump’s name. And an earlier email sent to members offering ticket packages for the June 28 Mark Twain Award for American Humor ceremony came from the Kennedy Center without including Trump\u2019s name.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Kennedy Center was running out of options Friday evening (local time) to keep US President Donald Trump’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":474931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[65,42,43,64,40,38,41,39,66],"class_list":["post-474930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-donald-trump","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-north-america","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-us-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/474931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}