Federal Judge Christopher Cooper turned down a request by the current administration of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to delay his previous order to remove Trump’s name from the building and all other signage.

Soon after his inauguration, Trump replaced the bipartisan board of the Kennedy Center with his allies, who promptly selected Trump as chairman of the board. The only non-Trump Democrat appointee who remained was ex-officio member Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio). The other board members tried to prevent her from participating in votes, but she persisted and filed the lawsuit to take Trump’s name down.

Trump has nearly destroyed the Kennedy Center since he took control. He replaced key administrators with his lackeys. The shake-up alienated audiences and performers. Artists canceled their performances, and ticket sales plummeted.

The board addressed the crisis by deciding to close the Kennedy Center for two years for renovations, possibly total demolition. The federal judge blocked that decision.

The dilemma now is that the Kennedy Center sits mostly empty now, with nothing lined up for the next season, when the board expected that the Center would be closed for renovation.

The Washington Post reported:

A federal judge Friday denied the Kennedy Center’s last-ditch motion to delay removing President Donald Trump’s name from the performing arts venue, as crews erected scaffolding next to the building less than 12 hours before the court-ordered deadline to do so.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled that the Kennedy Center’s lawyers failed to demonstrate they were likely to win their appeal or that the center would suffer “irreparable harm” if Trump’s name were removed….

In February 2025, Trump purged the center’s board of trustees and replaced them with political allies who then elected him board chair. In December, those loyalists voted to rename the venue, and a day later, crews added Trump’s name to the exterior.

Trump claimed that the board’s vote to do so was a surprise, but he had joked about naming the center after himself for months. Within hours his name was on the website, and the next morning the building’s sign read: “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”

Justice Department lawyers representing Trump later acknowledged that, given the speed with which the signage was installed, it had been “prepared and/or purchased prior to the Board’s vote the day before.”