United States President Donald Trump has announced he plans to withdraw his leadership from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, after a federal judge ruled he could no longer have his name on the building.
On Friday, in a 580-word post, Trump blasted Judge Christopher Cooper as reckless. He also painted the performing arts centre as a dilapidated structure only he could restore. “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,” Trump wrote, referring to himself in third person.
But Trump’s interventions at the Kennedy Center, a national performing arts centre in Washington, DC, have been controversial from the start. Construction on the building began in 1964, shortly after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. That year, his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, signed into law an act of Congress that established the site as a “living memorial” to the slain leader.
Since starting his second term, Trump has sought to reshape Washington, DC, in his own image, undertaking construction projects and erecting banners with his photograph. Within weeks of his inauguration in February 2025, he fired Democratic members of the Kennedy Center’s bipartisan board and replaced them with his picks. He also terminated the leadership of the centre’s longtime president, Deborah Rutter, and the board quickly elected Trump as chair.
Some of the biggest backlash came in December, when the board voted to rename the building “The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts”. Within a day, construction crews were seen adding Trump’s name to the outside of the edifice. Critics denounced the effort as a violation of the 1964 law and a sign of disrespect towards the late Kennedy.
Amid public pressure and cancellations from performers, Trump announced in February he would shutter the arts centre for two years, starting in July, citing renovations. US Representative Joyce Beatty, a Kennedy Center trustee, sued to stop the closure and remove Trump’s name. In Friday’s ruling, Judge Cooper — an appointee of former President Barack Obama — sided with Beatty, ordering Trump’s name removed within 14 days and blocking the closure.
Cooper wrote, “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.” He also overturned the board’s decision to strip trustees like Beatty of voting rights. In his 94-page decision, Cooper issued a temporary injunction against the centre’s closure, finding the board likely violated its duty to act prudently.
Trump responded on Truth Social, pledging to transfer oversight to Congress. “Judge Cooper should be ashamed of himself!” he wrote. Beatty applauded the ruling, stating, “The Kennedy Center is an institution that belongs to the American people, not to Donald Trump. He has desecrated this sacred memorial for his own vanity.”
Source: www.aljazeera.com