Donald Trump has threatened to leave the Kennedy Center closed indefinitely after a federal judge blocked efforts to place the president’s name on the Washington arts institution.
Trump said the board he selected had voted “almost unanimously” to close the venue at once for emergency renovations, just hours after the court ruling.
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But he also said the “very large and complex” work could not move forward until a higher court decides whether the center can legally be renamed in his honor.
“If the ruling is a negative one, which it should not be, and is not overturned by the US Supreme Court, the Reconstruction and the Renovation of The Kennedy Center will not take place,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social network.
After returning to office for a second term, Republican Trump installed himself as chairman of the center, which honors John F. Kennedy, the late Democratic president who championed civil rights before his assassination in 1963.
In December, the board voted to rename the institution the “Trump-Kennedy” Center and put up signs bearing Trump’s name.
US federal judge Christopher Cooper later ordered the name removed from the building’s exterior and overturned the board’s decision to rename the institution.
US President Donald Trump said the Kennedy Center would close immediately (file image)
In his latest ruling, Cooper said Trump’s name could not be installed again and criticized the center for attempting to evade his earlier order.
“Simply put,” Cooper wrote, the board “cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’s blessing”.
Demolition threat
Trump personally joined a board meeting and berated a Democratic congresswoman who serves on the panel and brought the lawsuit that stopped the renaming effort, CNN reported.
The effort to take control of the Kennedy Center is part of a broader campaign to put Trump’s stamp on Washington, including plans for a triumphal arch and a half-billion-dollar ballroom at the White House.
Workers took down Trump’s name from the building in June, but scaffolding and tarps have remained in place ever since.
Last month, the board advanced a proposal for new signage reading “renovated and restored by President Donald J. Trump”.
Cooper ruled that the proposal violated his earlier decision.
Trump and the Kennedy Center leaders he selected have maintained that the main building, constructed in the 1960s, has fallen into dangerous disrepair.
As evidence, the president cited a recent incident in which part of the ceiling crashed to the ground after a storm.
“If the Building were open, innocent people would have been killed,” he wrote on Truth Social before the judge issued his ruling.
During court proceedings last month, the Trump administration warned that the center could ultimately have to be demolished if its renovation plans were blocked.
Several artists canceled performances after Trump’s takeover, while US media have reported a steep decline in Kennedy Center ticket sales.
