Trump wants credit for Kennedy Center renovations that haven’t happened. A judge isn’t buying it

As President Donald Trump threatens to tear down the Kennedy Center if he can’t inscribe his name on it, a federal judge called one of the president’s arguments a “non sequitur.”

At a hearing on Trump’s latest efforts to have his name inscribed on the building in multiple places, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper said the proposed change made no logical sense. The hearing followed the Justice Department’s filing of a 26-page legal brief threatening to raze the Washington venue, legally named the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.

Last year, Trump removed the Kennedy Center’s board, which then voted to rename the institution and promptly installed raised lettering bearing Trump’s name above Kennedy’s. But a judge ordered the lettering removed in June, saying the board lacked the authority to rename the structure.

Related: Judge demands answers on Kennedy Center’s Trump tarp of shame

Now, the Kennedy Center board says it wants Trump’s name inscribed on a façade to read, “Renovated and Restored by President Donald J. Trump.”

But no renovation has taken place. Administration attorneys have argued that Trump would raise a $100 million endowment titled the “Trump Kennedy Center Fund” and claimed in a brief that such a fund is “already in existence, and ready to go!” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick upped the fundraising goal in comments to USA Today outside the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., predicting that the president would raise $500 million to renovate the center.

Cooper, though, noted that the proposed wording would credit Trump for work that has not yet occurred. According to Deadline, Cooper observed that the proposed inscriptions were written in the past tense.

Related: Federal judge orders Trump’s name stripped from Kennedy Center

The administration, which shut down the center in July for a multiyear renovation amid artist boycotts and poor ticket sales, says that without the needed improvements, the center will have to be demolished. That’s despite the center having undergone a significant renovation as recently as 2019.

The demolition threat comes after the Trump administration already tore down the East Wing of the White House to make way for a ballroom, only for a judge to issue an injunction halting construction because the president had not properly obtained congressional approval. The Supreme Court lifted that injunction last week.

Related: Trump administration tells judge: Let us put his name on the Kennedy Center, or we’ll tear it down

Cooper has instructed both sides in the current court challenge to submit written arguments before he issues a ruling.