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Having been ordered by a federal judge to remove President Donald Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Trump’s handpicked board has devised a new way to put it back.
The board voted Thursday to inscribe “Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump” beneath the building’s principal signage, The New York Times reports, citing two people with direct knowledge of the private proceedings.
The resolution directs center officials to recognize Trump through “all legal means” and suggests naming the grounds the “President Donald J. Trump Plaza.” It credits Trump with bringing the institution back “from the brink of disaster.”
The proposal challenges a May ruling by U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, who found that the board lacked authority to rename the institution. Congress designated the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as the nation’s living memorial to the assassinated president, and federal law generally bars additional memorials or memorial-like plaques in its public spaces.
“Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,” Cooper wrote in his accompanying opinion.
Trump took control of the Kennedy Center in February 2025, removing trustees, installing political allies, making himself chairman and placing gay Republican operative Richard Grenell in charge. Trump said he wanted to eliminate the center’s family-friendly drag programming.
As The Advocate previously reported, the institution subsequently removed LGBTQ+ programming, including a planned WorldPride concert involving the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, D.C. Artists withdrew, productions relocated, audiences stayed away, and ticket sales plunged.
Trump’s board voted in December to rename the institution the “Trump Kennedy Center.” Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, an ex officio trustee whom the board had stripped of her voting rights, sued. Cooper ordered Trump’s name removed, restored voting rights to ex officio trustees and temporarily blocked the board’s plan to close the center for two years.
Workers removed Trump’s lettering overnight June 12-13, but The Advocate reported that scaffolding and tarps remained, preventing the public from seeing the restored facade. Cooper subsequently ordered the parties to explain the covering’s purpose and status. Beatty’s attorneys accused Trump’s allies of “willfully sabotaging Kennedy Center’s iconic façade” after losing in court.
The board voted Thursday again to close the main building for renovations, according to the Times. Trustees were presented with a 163-page plan for a roughly $250 million project that would include structural repairs, new marble floors, acoustical work and $7 million in restroom renovations. The newer Reach complex would remain open for limited programming and Kennedy memorial exhibits.
Cooper had described the board’s first closure decision as “ill-informed and seemingly preordained,” but allowed trustees to reconsider it after conducting proper analysis. The Kennedy Center must submit its new plan to him next week.
