Photo: Photo by Jabin Botsfordages/The Washington Post via Getty Im
The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, one of Donald Trump’s stupidest efforts to remake Washington, D.C., in his image, died on Friday when a federal judge blocked the effort to rename the living memorial to the slain 35th president. It was five months old.
The new title was born on December 18, 2025, when White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced the change in an X post:
The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts faced struggle and ridicule from the very start. Many noted that Leavitt’s post made absolutely no sense (and not just the part where she congratulated the long-deceased JFK for being forced to share his memorial). As the New York Times noted at the time, “The performing arts center is, by law, designated the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and it has been generally understood that the power to change the name lies with Congress.”
But the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center persisted, even as outraged Kennedy family members spoke out against the change. Within days of the announcement, a new logo was issued and workers added “THE DONALD J. TRUMP AND” above the name that had been on the building for decades.
But fate (or, rather, the justice system) finally caught up with the Trump-Kennedy Center on Friday. In a 94-page order, Judge Christopher Cooper said what basically everyone had been saying from the start: Trump can’t just slap his name on the Washington arts institution.
“The Kennedy Center’s organic statute makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President [John] Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board’s unilateral say-so,” he wrote, per CNBC. “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.”
Judge Cooper’s ruling in the suit — which was brought by Democratic U.S. representative Joyce Beatty, an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center’s board — said that the original name must be restored on the building and all official branding. He also temporarily blocked the center from being shut down for renovations this summer, after Trump announced a two-year closure.
The funeral service will be held whenever workers pry Donald Trump’s name off the building, which will probably takes years as the president challenges the ruling or merely drags his feet on complying.
The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center is survived by various other legally dubious Trump vanity projects, including the White House ballroom and the so-called “Arc de Trump.”
