Judge blocks second attempt to add Trump's name to Kennedy Center facade

Cooper writes that Congress holds sole authority over building inscriptions

A federal judge on Tuesday rejected a second attempt to add President Trump’s name to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, ruling that the venue’s board violated his earlier order requiring the inscription’s removal.

Judge Christopher Cooper denied the board’s August plan to affix an inscription reading “renovated and restored by Donald J. Trump” beneath President John F. Kennedy’s name on the front portico and to rename the center’s grounds after Trump. In a May ruling, Cooper had held that only Congress has the authority to rename the institution after the board, stacked with Trump’s appointees, had voted in December to add Trump’s name to the building’s front.

Cooper on Tuesday acknowledged that major donors are routinely recognized with prominent inscriptions on buildings and in public spaces. “Congress had other ideas for the Kennedy Center,” he wrote. “Simply put, Defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’s blessing.”

The judge, an Obama appointee, declined to rule now on whether the board could lawfully add a second inscription in the future that would read “endowed by The Trump Kennedy Center Fund.” Cooper reasoned that the board had told the court the inscription would not be added until a private endowment it created in June had raised $100 million. “The Fund has raised nothing yet,” he wrote. Cooper directed the board to notify him when the endowment reached that mark and to give the court at least 60 days’ notice before installing any inscription.

Trump’s name first went up in December and came down a little over five months later. Scaffolding wrapped in a white tarp has covered the building’s name since. The board said in court papers that the scaffolding is protecting the marble facade, which it suggested might have been damaged when the inscription was removed.

In August, the board voted to christen the plaza after Trump and to inscribe his name below Kennedy’s. Rep. Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat and ex officio member of the Kennedy Center board, asked the court to intervene again after that vote. Her attorneys, Norm Eisen and Nathaniel Zelinsky, said after Tuesday’s ruling: “Two times the court has told President Trump the same thing: You are not above the law.”

The board has argued in court papers that renovations cannot be completed without honoring Trump and that nothing in the law prevents it from acknowledging his efforts. Justice Department attorneys told Cooper that donations are flowing because of Trump’s name and that the building would have to be demolished if it cannot be repaired.

The center has struggled for months. After Trump filled the board with his appointees and named himself chair, a number of artists canceled performances. In his May ruling, Cooper initially blocked a plan to close the venue for renovations after July 4 but said the board could vote again.

The latest decision comes ahead of a planned board meeting in which trustees are expected to vote on a new resolution to immediately close the center’s main building for two years for renovations. Earlier Tuesday, Trump said on social media that the building is in such poor condition that people could be hurt if it remains open.