Washington: A US judge ordered Donald Trump to remove his name from the front of the storied Kennedy Centre in Washington, prompting the president to wash his hands of the “failing institution” and declare he was handing custody back to Congress.
Christopher Cooper, a judge in the District of Columbia, found the centre’s board – which Trump named himself chairman of, and filled with loyalists – overstepped its statutory authority by unilaterally renaming the institution after the sitting president.
The John F. Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts was christened as such by Congress in 1964 to honour the assassinated former president, Cooper said, and “the text, structure and evolution of the organic statute makes the institution’s name abundantly clear”.
Congress also “took pains to ensure that no other memorial-like dedication would grace the centre’s public spaces”, he wrote in a 94-page opinion released on Friday afternoon (Washington time).
“As a result, the Kennedy Centre board’s decision to rename the centre, along with its decision to affix President Trump’s name to the building’s façade, violate Congress’ unequivocal mandate … Congress gave the Kennedy Centre its name, and only Congress can change it.”
Cooper also ruled against the board’s decision earlier this year to shutter the performing arts centre for a multi-year renovation.
That decision, which had been foreshadowed by Trump, was widely seen as a way to sidestep show cancellations and crashing visitor numbers after Trump’s takeover of the hallowed institution.
The judge said the board had endorsed an “ill-informed and seemingly preordained decision without regard for how it would accomplish its full array of statutory responsibilities”.
He added that while presidents routinely appointed political friends to the boards of Washington institutions, members of such boards were not “mere figureheads” and were still duty-bound to fulfil their roles with “due care and some modicum of independence”.
Trump reacted swiftly to the ruling, saying that if he was not free to do as he pleased with the Kennedy Centre, he wanted nothing to do with it.
He asserted that the building in its current state was a safety hazard, and accused Cooper of ignoring a presentation that showcased its rotting beams, “parking areas that are subject to collapse” and other dangers.
“Judge Cooper should be ashamed of himself!” Trump said on Truth Social.
“I cannot be involved with a situation where danger to the Public is allowed to flourish in plain and open sight. Unless I am free to do what I do better than anyone else, bring this Institution back, physically, financially, and artistically, I have no interest in continuing what could only be a hopeless journey into ‘NEVER NEVER LAND’.
“Unfortunately, Judge Cooper and the Radical Left would rather see it DIE than have President Trump transform it into something that everyone could be proud of.”
The Kennedy Centre, located on the banks of the Potomac River near the historic Watergate building, has been the celebrated home of opera, musical theatre, ballet and other performing arts in the US capital for decades.
Trump described it as “dying”, “losing” and “failing” in his Truth Social post after the judgment. He said Democrats cared more about opposing “your favourite President, ME” than saving the institution, which the board would now “transfer” back to Congress to decide what to do.
The legal challenge was brought by Ohio Democratic Representative Joyce Beatty, a member of the Kennedy Centre’s board by virtue of her position in Congress. In a statement after the ruling, Beatty said the Kennedy Centre “is an institution that belongs to the American people, not to Donald Trump”.
Her lawyers also applauded Cooper’s decision. “This is a powerful blow against the Trump administration’s corruption,” attorneys Norm Eisen and Nathaniel Zelinsky said.
The board could still close the Kennedy Centre, Cooper determined, “should it come to this decision anew after independently balancing its multiple obligations to the centre in a prudent fashion”.
with Reuters
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Michael Koziol is the North America correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political reporter in Canberra.Connect via X or email.