Judge rejects adding Trump name to Kennedy Center as board weighs venue's future
The decision on Tuesday marks a fresh setback in President Trump's effort to reshape the iconic cultural institution
A US federal judge has again blocked the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center from inscribing President Donald Trump's name on its facade.
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The decision on Tuesday marks a fresh setback in President Trump's effort to reshape the iconic cultural institution.
District Judge Christopher Cooper issued an order temporarily halting the center's latest proposal to put Trump's name on the memorial to Kennedy, the US president who was assassinated in 1963.
In addition, Cooper said the center's board cannot proceed with plans to rename the campus where it sits the "President Donald J. Trump Plaza."
"Simply put, defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress' blessing," Cooper wrote.
Read more: Iconic weeping willow trees outside Kennedy Centre felled
The order was issued shortly before the center's board was scheduled to vote on Trump's plan to shut down the famed performing arts venue for two years of repairs and renovations.
The board, composed of Trump appointees with Trump himself serving as president, has argued that adding Trump's name in honour of his efforts was necessary to ensure his continued commitment to its survival.
"The Board understands that without such appropriate recognition it is unlikely that President Trump will provide the fundamental oversight of the renovation of the main building and lead the fiscal rescue of the Center," it wrote.
Trump's campaign to remake the center is part of his broader effort to leave his cultural and aesthetic mark on Washington DC.
These plans also include a large new ballroom to replace the White House East Wing he ordered demolished, a troubled renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and a planned "triumphal arch" near the nation's main cemetery honouring its war dead.
The judge had previously ordered the center in May to remove Trump's name from the building after it changed its marble facade in December to read "The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts."
At that time, Cooper also blocked the center from closing down, finding that the board had not adequately considered the consequences.
Workers stripped Trump's name from the center in June and left the exterior masked by scaffolding and a white tarpaulin.
The board was expected to vote at Tuesday's meeting on immediately closing the center for an estimated two years of renovations to the main building, which the board says has crumbling ceilings from water damage.
In a Truth Social post on Tuesday, Trump said a "large piece of concrete and steel" fell from a hallway ceiling and that "innocent people would have been killed" if the building had been open at the time.
"We have already wasted more than 6 months "playing around" in Court," Trump wrote.