Trump vows to withdraw from Kennedy Center after court strikes his name | Donald Trump News

US President Donald Trump has announced plans to step down as director of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, after a federal judge ruled he can no longer put his name on the building.

In a 580-word message Friday, Trump called Judge Christopher Cooper reckless. He also painted the performing arts center as a dilapidated structure that only he could restore.

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“Sadly, Judge Cooper and the radical left would rather see it DIE than let President Trump turn it into something everyone could be proud of,” Trump wrote, referring to himself in the third person.

But Trump’s speeches at the Kennedy Center, a national performing arts center in Washington, D.C., were controversial from the start.

Construction of the building began in 1964, shortly after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

That year, his successor, Lyndon B Johnson, signed an act of Congress that established the site as a “living memorial” to the assassinated leader.

But since the start of his second term, Trump has sought to reshape Washington, D.C., in his image, undertaking construction projects and erecting banners with his photo.

Within weeks of his inauguration, in February 2025, he fired the Democratic members of the bipartisan Kennedy Center board and replaced them with his choices.

It also ended the center’s longtime president, Deborah Rutter. The board quickly elected Trump as president.

But one of the biggest pushbacks came in December, when the board went further and voted to rename the building “The Donald J Trump and the John F Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”

Within a day, construction crews were seen outside the arts center, adding Trump’s name to the exterior of the building.

Critics immediately denounced the move as a violation of the 1964 law, not to mention a disrespect to the late Kennedy.

Facing public pressure and a series of artist cancellations, Trump announced in February that he would close the arts center for two years, starting in July. He cited renovations as justification for the sudden closure.

U.S. Rep. Joyce Beatty, a Kennedy Center administrator, sued to prevent the closure. She also called for Trump’s name to be removed.

Friday’s court ruling requires Trump to remove his name from all signage and materials at the Kennedy Center within 14 days. [File: AFP]In the court decision

In Friday’s ruling, Judge Cooper — appointed by former President Barack Obama — sided with Beatty’s requests.

He ordered that Trump’s name be removed from the theater’s facade, as well as any other signage or official documents, within 14 days, citing the 1964 law.

“The Kennedy Center’s organic statute clearly states that the Center must be named for President Kennedy, and it may not bear any other official name or public memorial based on the unilateral decision of the Board of Trustees,” Cooper wrote.

“Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.”

Cooper also reversed the Trump-led board’s decision to strip trustees like Beatty of the right to vote on matters related to the Kennedy Center. Beatty is one of several bipartisan directors who serve on the board under an act of Congress.

“If directors presumptively possess voting rights, what, if anything, authorizes the board to unilaterally deprive certain directors of voting rights?” » Cooper asked in his decision, reversing the Trump-era policy.

“Absent congressional authorization, the Board may not deprive a duly appointed Kennedy Center Trustee of his or her right to vote on matters of the Board on which all other Trustees are entitled to vote.”

In the final part of his 94-page decision, Cooper turned his attention to the impending closure of the Kennedy Center.

He pointed to statements and plans by Trump administration officials touting the use of the performing arts facility before the July closure date, saying they undermined the claim that the building was somehow unsafe.

“Former President of the Kennedy Center [Richard] Grenell noted that the Center would be one of the ‘premier locations’ for the United States’ 250th anniversary celebration – a rather disturbing idea if the Center is as dangerous as the defendants currently represent it to be, Cooper wrote, hinting at events planned for the coming weeks.

He later added: “Until February 1, the Center was planning to proceed quickly with a phased form of construction and did not raise any security concerns regarding this plan. »

Although closing the Kennedy Center was within the board’s powers, Cooper concluded that the board likely violated its duty to administer the center “as a prudent person would” under the law.

He therefore issued a temporary injunction against the closure of the center. “The administrators could have evaluated the advisability of the closure in several prudent ways. This was not one of them,” he wrote.

Rep. Joyce Beatty sued the Trump administration over its plan to close the arts center. [File: Paul Sancya/AP Photo]Reactions to the decision

The decision sparked a furious rebuttal from Trump on his Truth Social platform. The president pledged to transfer oversight of the center to Congress, under whose mandate the center already operates.

“We will work with Congress to return this failed institution to them so they can decide what to do with it,” Trump wrote.

He also lambasted Cooper as a partisan actor who had treated him “unfairly,” echoing similar criticisms he had leveled at other justices.

“Judge Cooper should be ashamed of himself! I cannot be involved in a situation where danger to the public can flourish in plain sight,” Trump said.

“Unless I am free to do what I do better than anyone else, to bring this institution back, physically, financially and artistically, I have no interest in continuing what could only be a desperate journey to ‘NEVER NEVER LAND’.”

Beatty, meanwhile, hailed the decision as a victory against unchecked power, unfettered by the law.

“The Kennedy Center is an institution that belongs to the American people, not Donald Trump,” she wrote.

“He desecrated this sacred memorial for his own vanity. I am proud to have fought for the rule of law and to protect this sacred institution.”

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