A federal judge ruled in May 2026 that Donald Trump’s name must come off the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, saying only Congress can change the federally chartered institution’s name. The order also temporarily blocked a planned two-year closu
For a building that has long been wrapped in American cultural memory, the name itself became the battleground.
In May 2026, a federal judge ruled that President Donald Trump’s name must come off the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The decision, issued by U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper as a 94-page ruling. came with a second blow: it temporarily blocked the venue’s planned two-year closure for alleged renovations. leaving the center’s near future in limbo.
Cooper concluded that only Congress has the power to rename the federally chartered Washington, D.C., institution. While the legal reasoning drove the ruling. the real-world impact landed fast—emails. letterhead. internal documents. and public-facing materials all began to change. and even the building facade later became a place where the dispute was visibly rewritten.
Trump appointed himself president of the Kennedy Center upon his second term, which began in January 2025. He replaced the entire board of trustees, and that board later voted to rename the theater “The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.” It was that change—and how it was done—that Cooper said crossed a legal line.
Cooper wrote that the Kennedy Center’s “organic statute makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President Kennedy. and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board’s unilateral say-so.” He added that “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name. and only Congress can change it.”.
The judge’s ruling also put the center’s closure plan on hold. The planned shutdown was originally scheduled to begin in July 2026, timed to the country’s 250th anniversary. Cooper found that “none of the board members had sufficient information in advance of the March 16 meeting to make a well-considered decision to close the center.” He also left open the possibility that the board could revisit the closure if it independently weighed “its multiple obligations to the Center in a prudent fashion.”.
That uncertainty became immediate administrative pressure. On June 4. 2026. a Kennedy Center memo—obtained by Politico—directed employees to scrub Trump references from both internal and public-facing materials. “You must immediately change email signatures, letterhead, and other documents to reflect the name as ‘The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts,’ or ‘Kennedy Center,’” the memo said. It required other updates—templates and forms, signage, brochures, and website pages—to be completed no later than Friday, June 12, 2026.
The pressure extended to the center’s online presence as well. Trump’s name was quietly removed from the center’s official website, voicemail, and YouTube channel in the days leading up to the memo, according to the Associated Press.
A Kennedy Center spokesperson said, “We are complying with the court’s order while evaluating all legal options to preserve this revitalization and recognize President Trump’s leadership.”
Construction workers were spotted removing Trump’s name from the building facade on June 13, 2026—one more sign that what began as a legal dispute was turning into a visible overhaul.
The clash didn’t stop with court paperwork and signage. Maria Shriver, JFK’s niece, framed the ruling as personal as well as public. In May 2026. she wrote via Threads. calling it a “birthday present” for her late uncle. who would have turned 109 on the day Cooper issued his decision. Shriver wrote that a federal judge ruled that Trump and the Kennedy Center Board acted unlawfully in renaming the Kennedy Center after him. that Cooper held only Congress can change the Center’s name. and that the judge blocked the planned two-year closure for now. She added. “I know they’ll probably appeal and the story isn’t over. but for today. let’s celebrate a great birthday gift.”.
JFK’s grandson, Jack Schlossberg, took a more confrontational tone on X. He wrote: “Trump can take the Kennedy Center for himself. He can change the name, shut the doors, and demolish the building. He can try to kill JFK. But JFK is kept alive by us now rising up to remove Donald Trump. bring him to justice. and restore the freedoms generations fought for.”.
Trump, for his part, responded with a lengthy post on Truth Social. In it, he slammed Cooper’s decision as “bias,” noting that Cooper is a President Barack Obama appointee. Trump vowed to push Congress to take the building off his hands entirely. He also accused the judge of preventing the Kennedy Center from closing for large-scale renovations and construction that Trump said were due to years of “neglect. decay. and poor maintenance.” He claimed his administration would “transform” the venue into “the Finest Facility of its kind. anywhere in the World.”.
In that same post, Trump said he instructed the Department of Commerce to “make all necessary arrangements” to transfer control of the Kennedy Center back to Congress.
Cooper’s ruling didn’t settle the fight—it helped set the next stage. In June 2026, the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees voted to seek a stay of Cooper’s order. The board argued that reversing the name change would be “both wasteful for the Center and confusing for the public.”
Roma Daravi. the Trump Kennedy Center vice president of public relations. responded with a statement: “With $257 million secured by President Trump and approved by Congress. the resources are in place and we remain committed to pursuing every lawful avenue to ensure the Trump Kennedy Center is restored as a national cultural landmark for all Americans to enjoy.”.
Even as workers continued updating the building’s facade, Trump’s team pushed forward through both legal and political channels—while the Kennedy family celebrated a ruling they described as a long-overdue check on who gets to control the center’s name and future.
Kennedy Center Donald Trump Christopher Cooper Maria Shriver Jack Schlossberg Truth Social Truth Social post board of trustees renovations two-year closure January 2025 May 2026 ruling June 2026 memo