President Donald Trump took aim at the judge who halted his plans to renovate the Kennedy Center — and ordered Trump’s name taken off the building — saying the judge should “be ashamed of himself,” because the center is “structurally dangerous” and a threat to public safety.
In the wake of the judge’s ruling, Trump said he will order the Commerce Department to transfer the Kennedy Center to Congress “so they can make a determination as to what to do with it.”
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 a ruling Friday, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ordered Kennedy Center officials to remove Trump’s name from the building within two weeks and blocked Trump and the center from taking any further steps to close the institution for repairs. The judge found that the Kennedy Center’s board of trustees had acted illegally in voting to add Trump’s name to the Kennedy Center.
In a 580-word post on his Truth Social account, Trump wrote, “Shockingly, a Judge appointed by Barack Hussein Obama, Christopher Cooper, ruled that The Kennedy Center, which was going to close in early July for largescale renovations and construction due to years of neglect, decay, and poor maintenance, and which was to be transformed by the Trump Administration into the Finest Facility of its kind, anywhere in the World, is not allowed to close for these renovations, which would not be possible to properly do without such a closure.”
Trump continued, “Additionally, Judge Cooper ruled that the 36 Member Board of Trustees, which unanimously voted to add the name ‘TRUMP’ onto the former Kennedy Center, making it The Trump Kennedy Center, did not have the right to do such an addition, and the name, ‘TRUMP,’ must be removed.”
Trump claimed the Kennedy Center has lost hundreds of millions of dollars over the years — in some years losing more than $100 million, including because of “ridiculous construction jobs that were done.”
While the Kennedy Center’s board of trustees approved Trump’s two-year renovation plan in March, 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.” In a related ruling Friday on a suit filed by the DC Preservation League against the Kennedy Center’s board, Cooper denied the request for a preliminary injunction to stop additional renovations to the center but directed the parties “to meet and confer in good faith to discuss appropriate next steps in this proceeding.”
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A rep for the Kennedy Center had said earlier it planned to appeal the judge’s ruling. Trump, however, said Friday he’s looking to turn the Kennedy Center over to Congress.
“Unless I am free to do what I do better than anyone else, bring this Institution back, physically, financially, and artistically, I have no interest in continuing what could only be a hopeless journey into ‘NEVER NEVER LAND,’” Trump wrote in the social media post.
According to Trump because “the Radical Left Democrats care more about opposing your favorite 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.” Trump said he instructed the Department of Commerce “to make all necessary arrangements with Congress to allow a full and complete transfer of this Institution, giving them the responsibility for its Operation, Maintenance, and Management.”
He continued, “I took great pride in taking over a losing Institution, and looked forward to making it into a Great and Prestigious WINNER for Washington, D.C., and indeed, the United States of America. Unfortunately, Judge Cooper and the Radical Left would rather see it DIE than have President Trump transform it into something that everyone could be proud of, much as I have done, in many cases, throughout my life, and recently, with all of the construction, renovations, and ‘fix ups’ that we have completed with the Department of Interior on Waterfalls, Fountains, Monuments, and other things of Beauty that we have brought back to life in a now SAFE AND SECURE, after Record Setting Crime, Washington, D.C., which is thriving like, perhaps, never before!”
The president went on: “There has never been a President of the United States who has been treated so unfairly by the Courts as I but, that’s OK, I will continue to do, what is considered to be, a great job for the wonderful people of our Country.”
Cooper, in ruling on a lawsuit filed by U.S. Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) seeking to have Trump’s name removed from the edifice and to stop the Kennedy Center’s planned closure, 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.”
From Variety US