"The Kennedy Center will outlast Donald Trump. So will the law that established it"

 

There is something almost comical about Trump attempting to shutter the Kennedy Center simply because he cannot put his name on the building. Almost. But it is no laughing matter. Donald Trump has made it clear that he would rather close the center, undermine its future, and possibly demolish it than accept that he cannot turn a national memorial for the nation’s 35th president into a monument to himself.

Congress established the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 1964. The arts center belongs to the country. Trump’s appalling display of self-indulgence and his assault on the renowned cultural center reflect how he governs. He has zero respect for the limits on his power. He leaves no space for compromise or humility because both require recognizing that public office is temporary and that institutions are larger than the people who run them. Trump cannot recast the Kennedy Center as a tribute to himself, so is prepared to damage it for everyone

Here’s how we arrived at this spectacle: Trump seized control of the Kennedy Center in February 2025, claiming he was going to usher in a “Golden Age in Arts and Culture.” Instead, he imposed his political agenda and personal tastes. He installed sycophants on its board who voted to put his name on the building, and he drove away artists and audiences. Ticket sales and subscriptions plummeted after his takeover and nosedived further after he put his name on the building in December 2025. But neither he nor his board will acknowledge the damage their politicization of the non-political center has done.

Our organization, Democracy Defenders Action, along with Washington Litigation Group, represent Congresswoman Joyce Beatty — the lone member of the Kennedy Center board willing to stand up to Trump — in her litigation to halt his quest to permanently emblazon his name on the center. Rep. Beatty filed her initial lawsuit on December 22, 2025, four days after Trump put his name on the building. She amended her complaint two months later, after Trump announced the center would close for two years for renovations. The announced closure conveniently distracted from the embarrassment of patrons and artists rejecting Trump’s vision for the center.

U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper ruled on May 29 that Trump’s name could not be added without congressional authorization. He ordered Trump’s name removed, and he temporarily blocked the board’s then-pending closure plan.

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But in August, the board tried again, voting to inscribe Trump’s name as the building’s restorer and to close the center for two years. Our organization and Washington Litigation Group pushed back, filing on behalf of Rep. Beatty to block that scheme. 

On September 15, Judge Cooper ruled yet again that Trump’s name could not be added to the Kennedy Center “in any shape or form.” 

Hours later, Trump’s handpicked board voted to close the center immediately. Congress already appropriated more than $250 million for Kennedy Center renovations, but Trump declared on Truth Social that they “cannot begin” until an appeals court rules in his favor and that if he loses, the renovation “will not take place.” 

After the board meeting, crews erected fencing around the building in what can only be viewed as a brazen act of defiance of a court order that remains in place — and an unpresidential middle finger to us all.

We cannot allow Trump to rewrite recent history. He did not inherit a struggling arts center and benevolently decide to renovate it. He created the crisis of mostly empty theaters and the Washington Opera company not only fleeing the center but suing it. 

Now, Trump is punishing the institution and the public for rejecting him. He and his board inexplicably insist that Trump’s name on the Kennedy Center must be part of the solution. Apparently, the same man who needlessly turned our Reflecting Pool into a swamp is somehow uniquely capable of saving a national arts center that is deteriorating under his watch.

That is a textbook “only I can fix it” authoritarian lie: undermine institutions, create or deepen a crisis, then pretend that only the leader can save us from the calamity that he caused. The Kennedy Center’s Trump-created drama reflects this precarious political moment. Under our Constitution, the president is not above the law, and the center’s legal status makes that principle clear. As Rep. Beatty said, “This is not just about the center.”

Judge Cooper’s rulings should have ended the matter.

Presidents do not own the government. And a national memorial to a slain president is not a blank slate waiting for the name of the current president to be carved into it. Authoritarians sometimes win because they exhaust us. But we remain undeterred. The Kennedy Center will outlast Donald Trump. So will the law that established it.

The public will remember precisely what happened. The 47th president seized control of a revered national arts institution, tried to turn it into a tribute to himself, presided over its deterioration, and then chose to undermine its future rather than accept a simple fact: The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts does not belong to Donald Trump.

This debacle is a distraction and a critical reminder that authoritarians are never compelled to serve the people. They serve themselves.

Susan Corke is the executive director of Democracy Defenders Action, and Jenice R. Robinson is the communications director at Democracy Defenders Action.

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