President Trump’s name has been taken down from the facade of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, as an organization official told a federal judge Saturday that all references to him inside, outside and online have been removed.
The Washington center’s acting executive director, Matt Floca, said in a filing that the organization “removed all physical signage on the Kennedy Center building and grounds, including the front portico, that purports to rename the Kennedy Center after President Trump or any other individual besides President Kennedy.”
The move was to comply with a court order requiring the removal by noon. Construction workers began removing Mr. Trump’s name from the building’s exterior early Saturday.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper last month ordered the signage erased after ruling that the center’s board of trustees, chaired by Mr. Trump, lacked congressional approval to unilaterally add his name to the building.
“Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,” the judge wrote.
The full title was temporarily changed to The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.
The Kennedy Center’s “organic statute makes 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,” Judge Cooper wrote.
The court’s order reinforces the center’s 1964 statute, which mandated that the venue act as a living memorial solely for Kennedy.
Judge Cooper’s ruling came six months after a Trump-handpicked board voted to rebrand the performing arts venue.
Trustees sought an emergency stay to pause the judge’s order requiring the removal of Mr. Trump’s name and official signage.
In a last-ditch effort, the center’s lawyers argued that taking the current president’s name off the building would trigger previously unannounced bylaws, causing the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in renovation funds that would then need to be returned.
The federal appeals court denied the Kennedy Center’s request to pause the ruling. Lawyers opposing the board argued the funding claim was “meritless” because it was never raised during proceedings in the lower court.
In the same ruling, Judge Cooper blocked the board’s plans to shut down the cultural venue for a multiyear $250 million renovation, funded by last summer’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. He cited that the board did not follow proper procedures.
