The Board of Trustees of the Kennedy Center is taking steps to keep President Donald Trump’s name on the building.
The board voted to seek a stay of U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper’s May 29 ruling that said Trump’s name was illegally added to the Kennedy Center, the Associated Press reported.
In the filing, the Kennedy Center said the court should grant a stay of the judge’s order, because it has “strong arguments to raise on appeal,” and that removing Trump’s name would be “both wasteful for the Center and confusing for the public.”
Cooper previously ruled that only Congress — not the board — has the authority to change the center’s name.
In recent days, Trump’s name had already been removed from the center’s official website, voicemail and YouTube channel.
Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, an ex-officio member of the Kennedy Center’s board, previously filed a lawsuit seeking to remove Trump’s name from the institution.
Representatives for Beatty, 76, slammed the board’s latest move, claiming it “evinces desperation.”
“That is what they should be feeling because they don’t have a legal leg to stand on,” Norm Eisen, a board member at Democracy Defenders Action, and Nathaniel Zelinsky, senior counsel at the Washington Litigation Group, said in a statement to the Associated Press. “We will be vigorously contesting this latest ploy as we have throughout the case on behalf of Congresswoman Beatty and the American people.”
Back in December 2025, the board of the Kennedy Center initially voted to rename it the Trump-Kennedy Center. The decision sparked outrage from some of John F. Kennedy’s extended family, including Maria Shriver.
“The Kennedy Center was named after my uncle, President John F Kennedy. It was named in his honor,” Shriver, 70, wrote via Instagram at the time. “He was a man who was interested in the arts, interested in culture, interested in education, language, history. He brought the arts into the White House, and he and my Aunt Jackie amplified the arts, celebrated the arts, stood up for the arts and artists.”
According to Shriver, it is “beyond comprehension” that Trump, 79, “has sought to rename this great memorial dedicated to President Kennedy.”
“Can we not see what is happening here? C’mon, my fellow Americans! Wake up!” she continued. “This is not dignified. This is not funny. This is way beneath the stature of the job. It’s downright weird. It’s obsessive in a weird way. Just when you think someone can’t stoop any lower, down they go…”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt provided a different point of view on the Kennedy Center’s new name when it was first announced. At the time, she praised Trump’s “unbelievable work” over the last year “in saving the building.”
“Not only from the standpoint of its reconstruction, but also financially, and its reputation,” she continued via X. “Congratulations to President Donald J. Trump, and likewise, congratulations to President Kennedy, because this will be a truly great team long into the future! The building will no doubt attain new levels of success and grandeur.”
