President Donald Trump’s name will not be returning to the Kennedy Center anytime soon.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Wednesday ruled against the arts institution’s motion to stay a lower court’s decision that Trump’s name be removed from the Kennedy Center pending its appeal.
On May 29, 2026, a federal district court judge ordered, among other things, the removal of Trump’s name from the façade of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and all other similar physical signage, as well as “the deletion of his name as part of the title of the Center on the official website” and the withdrawal of any trademark applications that included Trump’s name as part of the Kennedy Center’s appellation. The judge ruled in favor of Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), who in December sued Trump and the Kennedy Center’s board, arguing that the move to add Trump’s name to the center was illegal.
Workers removed “Donald J. Trump” from the Kennedy Center building on June 13 in compliance with the court order — but that section of the center remains obscured by large tarps for now.
The Kennedy Center appealed the decision, with Justice Department lawyers arguing on behalf of the center that, among other things, the removal of Trump’s name “threatens to impede the Center’s fundraising efforts and contribute to the financial decline of the Center.”
The three-judge appellate court panel on July 8 denied the motion for a stay pending appeal “because [appellants] have failed to show how they will be irreparably injured absent a stay.”
Regarding the claim that the Kennedy Center will suffer financial harm if it is not permitted to reinstate Trump’s name, the appeals court said in its ruling that the center had “failed to support this assertion with any specific facts or evidence. They offer only the conclusory assertions of the Kennedy Center’s Executive Director that were made in a factually unsupported declaration.”
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“Today’s ruling again affirms that this administration’s efforts to rename the Kennedy Center were unlawful,” Beatty said in a statement Wednesday. “His name no longer desecrates this sacred memorial, which belongs to the American people. Now it is time for the Trump administration to accept this, comply with the law, and take the tarps down.”
“The D.C. Circuit’s decision means Donald Trump’s name will remain off the Kennedy Center for the foreseeable future, exactly as the law requires, and as Congress intended when it established it,” Norm Eisen, co-founder and board member of Democracy Defenders Action, and Nathaniel Zelinsky, senior counsel at the Washington Litigation Group, who are representing Beatty in the matter said in a joint statement. “This is a great win for the rule of law and the American people’s decision to honor John F. Kennedy’s memory. It is also a clear reminder that public institutions are not personal branding opportunities for any president.”
Representatives for the Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In the wake of the judge’s ruling in May, Trump said he would order the Commerce Department to transfer management of the Kennedy Center to Congress. But the Kennedy Center filed an appeal shortly thereafter.
Trump earlier this year had said the Kennedy Center would shut down for two years starting July 4, 2026, to undergo a “complete rebuilding.” In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper also blocked Trump and the center from taking any further steps to close the institution for repairs.
According to Trump’s May 29 social media post, because “the Radical Left Democrats care more about opposing your favourite President, ME, than saving a dying Performing Arts Center,” his administration will be “working with Congress to transfer this failing Institution back to them so they can make a determination as to what to do with it.”
Judge Cooper, in his ruling, said a 1964 federal law was “crystal clear” in establishing the arts center’s name as “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts” and that its board of trustees was barred from adding any other name to the building. “The Court has concluded that the Board overstepped its statutory bounds by unilaterally renaming the Kennedy Center after President Trump,” Cooper wrote in the ruling. “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.”
In December 2025, the board of trustees of the Kennedy Center, who were picked by Trump, voted “unanimously” to add Trump’s name to the organization, which they declared would be known as “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”
From Variety US