Trump Lost the Kennedy Center Fight — and He Is Not Taking It Well

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]That has to come down. A federal judge just ruled President Trump's name cannot be on the Kennedy Center. It cannot be called the Trump Kennedy Center. And Trump and his own board cannot close the Kennedy Center for renovations for two years. And it seems President Trump is pretty pissed about it. The president posted this very lengthy message on his social media page just a short time ago responding to this judge's ruling basically saying that if he can't do what he wants and he can't have his name on the building, he's going to abandon plans to renovate the facility and he's going to hand operations off to Congress. More on why that doesn't really make any sense in a second. But first, you have to understand that the Kennedy Center was established by a law passed by Congress as a national center for performing arts and specifically as a living memorial to President John F.

[00:00:49]Kennedy in 1964 after his assassination.

[00:00:52]Congress said that trustees appointed by the president are responsible for maintaining the center and administering the programming for the center. The Kennedy Center is funded not only by ticket sales and donations, but also funded with taxpayer money approved by Congress every single year. And in case you didn't know, when President Trump came into office, he replaced several Kennedy Center trustees and appointed himself as a trustee. And then his newly installed board named him the chairman of the board. And as chairman, Trump fired the Kennedy Center president. And then in December, the Trump appointed board voted to rename the facility the Trump Kennedy Center and the lettering went up on the facility the very next day. Then in February of this year, as ticket sales started to slump, President Trump said that the Kennedy Center would close for 2 years because of a massive renovation he was now planning. Six weeks later, his board approved that closure. But today in this 94page ruling, the judge used the existing law to determine that Trump cannot put his name on the building because the Kennedy Center's organic statute makes it crystal clear that the center is to be named for President Kennedy and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the board's unilateral say so. Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name and only Congress can change it. Obviously, Congress did not vote to change it to the Trump Kennedy Center. But besides that, when it comes to this two-year closure of the Kennedy Center, the judge said Trump's appointed board of trustees violated its fiduciary duty and was derelictked in discharging the full range of its responsibilities to the center. More specifically, the board based its decision on an insufficient one-sided presentation of information and neglected to consider the full range of its statutory obligations and potential adverse consequences of closure on programming and memorial functions. It's important to note the judge said the renovations Trump wants to do at the Kennedy Center can absolutely continue. He just can't close the facility to do it. For the record, Republicans gave the Kennedy Center $256 million of taxpayer money in the Big Beautiful bill to complete these renovations. And that's on top of the cent's annual appropriations of $37 million also of taxpayer money. Trump posted these proposed renovations for the Kennedy Center back in March. But today, based on his new post, it seems like none of that is going to happen anymore. Even though Trump claims the facility is falling apart at the seams, he's saying he's going to wash his hands of all of it. Judge Cooper should be ashamed of himself. I cannot be involved with a situation where danger to the public is allowed to flourish in plain and open sight. 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 Neverland. I'm not sure exactly what that means, but Trump then said he is going to instruct the Commerce Department to make all necessary arrangements with Congress to make a full and complete transfer of responsibility for operation, maintenance, and management of the Kennedy Center back to Congress. Not quite sure how that would work given that the law specifically says that the Kennedy Center board of trustees is responsible for the operation and maintenance of the facility. What we know for sure is that the Kennedy Center officials laid off most of the staff in anticipation of this 2-year closure which was supposed to start in July. And today's ruling could leave the center open with no performance calendar. So, who knows what's going to come next.

[00:04:19]Now, if you want to read the judge's order from today, I'm going to email it out to you tonight in my Fax HQ email, which of course is free. So, make sure you sign yourself