08/14/2026
It has been voted to put Trump name back onto the Kennedy center-- Why does the Trump administration seem to think they can put his name back on the building when a judge ordered it to be taken off?
Because this time itās not being framed as a renaming, and the renaming is what the court rejected. The language that the board approved on Thursday would read āRestored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump,ā which is different from the previous effort to fully rename and rebrand the Kennedy Center as the āDonald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.ā
Of course, depending on what the signage looks like, the inscription may end up being basically equivalent to the illegal renamingāfor example, the administration may make Trumpās name as big as president Kennedyās. One trustee told the New York Times that heād like to see Trumpās name āas big as it can get.ā That same trustee told the Atlantic that heād like to see Trumpās name āeverywhere that it could be possibleā at the Kennedy Center.
And would that be legal?
That will be up to the courts, of course. But the Kennedy Centerās founding statute says that the board cannot add āmemorials or plaques in the nature of memorialsā to āthe public areasā of the Kennedy Center. That is, in part, why the court found the renaming to be illegal. Installing another huge Trump sign on the Kennedy Centerās facade, whether or not itās officially renaming the building, may also violate this part of the statute, because the statute appears to prohibit honoring anyoneāin any capacityābesides Kennedy.
