The institution’s board had greenlit the change for the Kennedy Center to add Trump’s name back in December.
Kennedy Center employees began stripping President Donald Trump‘s name from the building’s exterior on Friday, after an appeals court denied a request to halt a judicial order mandating it be removed.
Scaffolding went up around the iconic Washington, DC, venue as crews got to work taking down the lettering that had previously read, “The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts.”
The institution’s board had greenlit the change for the Kennedy Center to add Trump’s name back in December, stating it was meant to honor Trump’s role in saving “the institution from financial ruin and physical destruction.” The letters were installed on the building the very next day.
However, despite the board’s repeated legal efforts to stop it, the removal is now underway. The board pursued both a stay pending appeal and an emergency administrative stay, arguing that the name ought to remain in place until appellate courts could weigh in on the decision, but both attempts failed. A three-judge panel of the DC Circuit ultimately rejected the emergency motion as well to keep the name affixed on the building.
In the emergency motion, the Trump administration wrote, “It does not make sense to alter the Center’s name and signage now, only to potentially revert the name again after what should be a successful appeal.”
US District Judge Christopher Cooper also turned down the board’s request to pause enforcement of his ruling on Friday.
Trump slammed Cooper in a forceful late May Truth Social post in reaction to the decision, writing, “Trump Hating Judge wants to keep it open because his wife probably told him to do so.” Cooper’s ruling was issued on May 29 and said that the Kennedy Center Board exceeded its legal authority when it voted to rename the center, per Fox News.
As of Saturday morning, the Kennedy Center had also wiped President Donald Trump’s name from the website.
