Judge Questions Kennedy Center Plan to Restore Trump’s Name to the Facade

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper heard nearly two hours of argument Thursday on whether the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts may add President Trump’s name back to the building after a prior order forced it off. Cooper did not rule from the bench. Later Thursday the Kennedy Center board told the court it would not install new lettering before Oct. 8, a month later than the Sept. 8 date it had planned. Cooper, an Obama appointee, had asked Justice Department lawyer Brantley Mayers what was “magic” about Sept. 8 and said that if the center did not slow the timeline he might issue a temporary order blocking the work while the case proceeds.

The dispute is Beatty v. Trump in the District of Columbia. Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, an ex officio trustee, sued after the board in December 2025 affixed lettering that read “The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.” On May 29 Cooper granted Beatty partial summary judgment, holding that a 1964 statute named the center for President John F. Kennedy and that “only Congress can change it.” He ordered the Trump lettering removed from the facade, website, and official materials. The name came off in June. A tarp has covered the facade since. The D.C. Circuit denied a stay pending appeal.

On Aug. 13 the board, chaired by Trump, voted to place an inscription beneath the existing Kennedy Center name reading that the venue was “Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump,” to designate the grounds “President Donald J. Trump Plaza,” and, if a $100 million endowment threshold is met, to add “Endowed by the Trump Kennedy Center Fund.” Beatty sought emergency relief. Her lawyer, Nathaniel Zelinsky, told Cooper the new plan was “outright defiance” of the May order because it again puts Trump’s name on the front portico. The Justice Department argued the latest inscriptions do not rename the institution and only recognize renovation and fundraising. Cooper asked what the renovation timeline had “to do with what Congress intended in these statutes.” When Mayers began describing the building’s condition, Cooper called that a “non sequitur” and noted Congress has already appropriated more than $250 million for repairs.

In a Monday filing the Justice Department wrote that an order blocking the board from “appropriately recognizing President Trump” would cause donors to flee and rehabilitation to stop, and that without those efforts the center could become “an unsafe, decrepit structure that will be required to be taken down,” with discussion of a possible outdoor amphitheater on the site. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has separately said the center’s physical future is in doubt if Trump’s name is not attached. Beatty’s filings call the recognition resolution a memorialization Congress barred and say the board manufactured urgency. The government says it will not proceed before Oct. 8 so Cooper can decide. The tarp remains on the facade. The underlying appeal of the May renaming ruling is still pending.