Judge Rules the Government Must Pry Trump’s Name off the Kennedy Center in Next Two Weeks

I refuse to believe that any administration in Earth’s history has suffered severe public humiliation and embarrassment at half the rate that the second Trump regime is currently experiencing. Truly, it is impossible to even keep up with all the metaphorical pantsings of the POTUS that happen every day, even in an administration where he exerts profound control over all three branches of the United States government. Dear god, what is it going to be like after the midterm elections in November, when Democrats might seize back control of not just the House of Representatives but maybe the U.S. Senate as well? How much humiliation constitutes a lethal dose for a … oh, let’s say 275 pound … individual?

Today’s latest embarrassment that will no doubt have the President of the United States fuming and throwing McDonald’s wrappers at aides: A federal judge just ruled that the administration has two weeks to effectively scrub every mention of Trump from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, including prying his name from the marble facade of the building itself just months after it was bolted on next to Kennedy’s, because the law that established the center makes it “crystal clear” that only Congress has the power to change the center’s name. The same person, U.S. District Judge Casey Cooper, also ruled that the Kennedy Center Trump called “dilapidated” was at least temporarily blocked from closing this summer as the President had decreed, saying that the center’s board could not pretend to have done its due diligence in making that decision and kowtowing to Trump’s demands.

“None of the board members had sufficient information in advance of the March 16 meeting to make a well-considered decision to close the center,” Cooper wrote.

BREAKING: we just won our Kennedy Center case!

Both the renaming & the closure of the Kennedy Center are enjoined

Kudos to our wonderful client @repbeatty.bsky.social & my colleagues @democracydefendersaction.org & Washington Litigation Group

This is a 1-2 punch against Trump’s corruption

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— Norm Eisen (@normeisen.bsky.social) 2:55 PM · May 29, 2026

The Kennedy Center is of course one of many Washington institutions that has been caught in the gaze of Sauron/Trump during the course of the man’s second stint in office, which naturally never ends well for the institute in question. Highlights have included the January announcement of Kevin Couch as the center’s new Head of Artistic Programming, a tenure that lasted all of 12 days (just a scooch more than a Scaramucci) before he resigned without offering any reasoning. Perhaps the quick flight had something to do with waves of artist cancelations and protests that subsequently plagued the Kennedy Center? Either way, Trump’s oh-so-unexpected response was to order the center closed entirely for two years for renovation that was suddenly of critical importance, as explained in one of his signature Truth Social posts that Capitalizes random Words and Makes You feel like You’re Having a stroke. Or as he put it:

I have determined that The Trump Kennedy Center, if temporarily closed for Construction, Revitalization, and Complete Rebuilding, can be, without question, the finest Performing Arts Facility of its kind, anywhere in the World. In other words, if we don’t close, the quality of Construction will not be nearly as good, and the time to completion, because of interruptions with Audiences from the many Events using the Facility, will be much longer. The temporary closure will produce a much faster and higher quality result!

Various public figures connected to the legacy of President John F. Kennedy were especially critical of Trump’s attempt to shoehorn himself into the respectability of the center’s legacy, particularly by having the narcissism to literally add his name to the building and website. Maria Shriver, for instance, said “It is beyond wild that he would think adding his name in front of President Kennedy’s name is acceptable. It is not.” Kennedy’s niece Kerry Kennedy, meanwhile, vowed that she would “grab a pickaxe” and remove Trump’s name from the building as soon as he was out of office again; hopefully she doesn’t mind settling for the government being forced to do it for her.

Judge Casey Cooper’s full, 94-page ruling spares no apparent disdain for the Trump administration’s particularly pointless attempts to directly circumvent U.S. law, even when it’s a law so seemingly basic as how a building receives its name. He observes that the center “cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board’s unilateral say-so,” because “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.” The center will therefore be permanently barred from “displaying, installing, or maintaining any physical or digital signage on the Kennedy Center building or grounds that designates, suggests, or implies that the institution is named for any person other than President John F. Kennedy.” The ruling orders that within the next two weeks, the government must remove any signage on the center itself bearing Trump’s name, and also remove all references to a “Trump Kennedy Center” from the organization’s website. There’s not much here up for interpretation, but it will no doubt be fun to watch the administration try to run out the clock to avoid being seen as the slightest bit weak in being compelled to follow the judge’s order.

Judge Cooper noted that his decision would not bar the board of the Kennedy Center from eventually deciding the close the institution for long renovations, but said they should only do so after having gathered “sufficient information to make a considered, independent decision, taking account of its obligation to both maintain and operate a premiere arts venue and its solemn duty to memorialize a fallen president.”

That’s probably asking a bit much, given that words like “considered” and “solemn duty” effectively do not exist in the current administration. We’d settle for just seeing Trump forced to watch as his name is removed from the marble walls of the institution he so badly wants to be venerated by, all of five months after the letters were added. Sometimes, a little petty tragedy is all you need for a satisfying show.