Lutnick posted video appearing to show debris falling in grand foyer
The Kennedy Center’s Trump-appointed board was scheduled to vote at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday on closing the institution’s main building for renovations, after quietly shelving a planned vote to restore Donald Trump’s name to the facade. The closure push, framed by the board on safety grounds, drew immediate challenge from Rep. Joyce Beatty’s lawyers, who called the board’s weekend court filing “an outrageous act of hostage taking” and disputed the safety consultants’ characterization of the building.
The vote was set hours after a 10 a.m. status conference in US District Court before Judge Christopher Cooper, who ruled in May that only Congress has authority to rename the building. The competing claims frame a financial and legal fight that has dogged the center since Trump installed himself as chair in February 2025.
In a notice filed Monday in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, government lawyers disclosed that Joe LaFauci, the center’s vice-president of board relations, told the board that Tuesday’s meeting “is now focused exclusively on the necessary closure of the Center,” citing “recently exacerbated structural emergencies”.
The draft resolution up for a vote would close the main building on safety grounds, describing it as unsafe for continued occupancy. Beatty’s lawyers dispute that characterization, arguing in a court filing that the safety consultants cited, Delta Consulting Group, “expressly disclaimed” reaching any such opinion. Norm Eisen, one of Beatty’s attorneys, called the board’s weekend document dump “an outrageous act of hostage taking,” writing on X: “Pay up or the Kennedy Center closes, & the price is Trump’s name on the building”.
Eisen said separately on Tuesday that the board had “backed down” on pushing a fresh renaming vote, though it planned to press ahead with the closure.
The now-shelved second resolution had listed 10 options for inscribing Trump’s name and the “Trump Kennedy Center Fund” beneath the center’s name on the exterior marble, tying various forms of credit to renovation, endowment or oversight of the building. In the Monday filing, the board said that trustees “stand by the recognition resolution proposed and passed by the Board on August 13, 2026”.
Cooper ordered Trump’s name removed from the building in May, ruling that only Congress has authority to rename it, and the lettering came down in June. The board voted in August to reinstate an inscription and proceed with the closure, a decision Tuesday’s meeting was expected to formalize.
Howard Lutnick, the US commerce secretary, posted a security video on Monday appearing to show debris falling in the center’s grand foyer, saying “the entire building is in this kind of shape” and that only Trump “can deliver the renovation on time and on budget”. Trump then shared the post on Truth Social.
Current leadership has blamed the center’s crisis on mismanagement by former president Deborah Rutter’s team, alleging a “falsified” budget with $26 million in “phantom revenue” — a claim Rutter and former board chair David Rubenstein have both denied, noting the center’s finances were independently audited.
Trump installed himself as chair in February 2025, firing the board and its longtime president, Rutter.