Trump Re-Ups His Threat To Raze the Kennedy Center Unless He Can Slap His Name on It

After a federal judge rejected his attempts at self-glorification, Trump said the building will "end up being ripped down" if he does not get the "recognition" he wants.

Unless President Donald Trump can attach his name to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate warned last month, the building "will deteriorate further into an unsafe, decrepit structure that will be required to be taken down." On Wednesday, Trump repeated that threat, telling reporters the Kennedy Center will "end up being ripped down" if he does not get the "recognition" he wants. That night, an Agence France-Presse photographer captured images of Trump looking at a placard labeled "Kennedy Center DEMOLISHED" while sitting on Air Force One.

Christopher Cooper, a federal judge in the District of Columbia who is overseeing two cases involving the Kennedy Center, alluded to those "recent events" in an order he issued on Thursday in Beatty v. Trump. Cooper noted that the Kennedy Center's board of trustees, which is chaired by Trump himself and stacked with his cronies, had said it planned to renovate the building rather than demolish it. If that plan changes, he said, the board must notify the plaintiffs "more than 30 days" in advance to "avoid any confusion on that score."

Trump, by contrast, seems determined to foster confusion about the Kennedy Center's fate. Last May, Cooper ruled that Congress had given the center its name and only Congress could change it, which meant the trustees had to remove Trump's name from the front of the building. In response, Trump said he was washing his hands of the project.

"Based on the fact that the Radical Left Democrats care more about opposing your favorite President, ME, than saving a dying Performing Arts Center," he wrote on Truth Social the next day, "we are going to be working with Congress to transfer this failing Institution back to them so they can make a determination as to what to do with it….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.'"

The president said he had "instructed the Department of Commerce to make all necessary arrangements with Congress to allow a full and complete transfer of this Institution, giving them the responsibility for its Operation, Maintenance, and Management." Trump, in short, was taking his ball and going home. But then he came back.

Two and a half months after Trump disavowed any interest in renovating the Kennedy Center, the board of trustees approved a resolution to "recognize and honor President Trump's current and future existential and unprecedented contributions to the survival of the Center." It planned to do so by naming the center's site the "President Donald J. Trump Plaza" and by adding "renovated and restored by President Donald J. Trump" below "THE JOHN F. KENNEDY MEMORIAL CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS" on the building's portico.

That proposal was not much different from the change that Cooper had nixed in May, which involved adding "THE DONALD J. TRUMP AND" above the center's name. And according to Cooper, the new plan was also illegal.

The relevant statute says "no additional memorials or plaques in the nature of memorials shall be designated or installed in the public areas of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts." It makes a few exceptions, none of which encompasses the changes that the trustees had in mind. And another restriction, which Congress added in 2012, prohibits donor acknowledgments on the exterior of the building.

"Defendants are hereby enjoined from inscribing 'renovated and restored by Donald J. Trump' on the main building or renaming the campus the 'President Donald J. Trump Plaza,'" Cooper wrote in an order he issued on Tuesday. "Simply put, Defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress's blessing. The board resolution bucks a federal court order and a statute Congress enacted."

That afternoon, Trump announced that the Kennedy Center had been closed "for Safety reasons" and "so that it can begin the process of Reconstruction." But he said that project "cannot begin" until the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit reviews Cooper's decision. "If the ruling is a negative one, which it should not be, and is not overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court," he warned, "the Reconstruction and the Renovation of The Kennedy Center will not take place."

The next day, Trump re-upped his threat to raze the Kennedy Center. "For the Trump administration, for me, to get involved and to take that on long term and to carry it or to raise money to carry it, I think that the Trump administration should certainly have recognition because, frankly, if we don't do that, it's going to close," he said. "It'll end up being ripped down. It's in very, very bad shape, very dangerous shape."

Now Trump is not simply taking his ball and going home. He is threatening to puncture, flatten, and shred a ball that does not even belong to him. Construction of the Kennedy Center, originally the National Cultural Center, was funded by a combination of private donations, congressionally appropriated taxpayer money, and "long-term revenue bonds held by the U.S. Department of Treasury."

As Trump tells it, he came to the center's rescue, and acknowledging that heroic act is crucial to raising funds for its renovation. But as Reason's Joe Lancaster noted last month, it was Trump's takeover of the center that precipitated a financial crisis: "Before Trump reentered office in January 2025, the Kennedy Center was doing rather well, even netting a $6 million surplus in 2023." But "ticket sales and donations dried up after Trump took over with promises of slapping his name on the building and playing an active role in choosing what events are held there."

The results of Trump's takeover "have predictably been disastrous," Reason's Billy Binion noted in June. "Ticket sales plummeted, artists canceled en masse, [and] donations reportedly declined."

Ignoring those points, the Trump administration portrays the president's demand for public adulation as part of a noble attempt to restore the Kennedy Center. "An order blocking the Board from appropriately recognizing President Trump will cause donors to flee, financial contributions to dry up, and structural rehabilitation to stop," Shumate warned last month. "There will simply not be the expertise or funding necessary to rebuild and renovate this decimated structure. The Trump Administration is ready to go but, without it, the Kennedy Center cannot be saved."

This is not about Trump, in other words. It just so happens that illegally glorifying him is necessary to raise the money required to resuscitate "a dying Performing Arts Center," just as illegally razing the East Wing of the White House and replacing it with a huge, gaudy ballroom was necessary to protect national security.

Although these may seem like vanity projects, Trump insists he is only acting in the public interest, for which we should all be thankful. In the case of the Kennedy Center, all he wants is a token of that gratitude, and he is baffled that something as trivial as the rule of law would stand in his way.