Aug. 27, 2026Updated Aug. 28, 2026, 6:28 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON − What’s in a name? In the case of the Kennedy Center, $500 million and the very future of the building, according to hotly contested claims by the White House.
But a decision on whether President Donald Trump will in some way be able to keep his name on the historic arts center was postponed Aug. 27 by a federal judge. That means the legal rhetoric on both sides won’t end any time soon.
Justice Department lawyers argue that the venue’s board agreed to credit Trump on the building’s facade for needed renovations. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told reporters outside Thursday’s court hearing that Trump could raise $500 million to endow the Kennedy Center and help it meet its bills – and prevent demolition.
“Without those efforts, the Center will deteriorate further into an unsafe, decrepit structure that will be required to be taken down,” government lawyers wrote in a legal filing. Trump and the Justice lawyers say that the Kennedy Center could be replaced by a large outdoor amphitheater overlooking the Potomac River.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, who ordered Trump’s name removed from the building and who temporarily prevented the board from closing the building for two years of construction, told both sides to provide him with more written arguments. The absence of Trump’s name on the facade will be in “a temporary holding pattern,” he said.
Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, who has fought to have Trump’s name removed from the facade, says Trump’s name doesn’t belong on the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Congress appropriated $257 million for the renovation project. But Lutnick said Trump’s goal is to privately raise an additional $500 million to endow the Kennedy Center so that it can manage its operating expenses.
In exchange, Trump wants his name on the façade crediting him with the restoration, which Lutnick said would happen after fundraising for a hospital or university building.
“Only he has the power and the expertise to renovate this building in a spectacular fashion during the next two-year period,” Lutnick said.
The center’s board of mostly Trump allies voted Aug. 13 to place signage on the building: “The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump.”
If Trump’s fundraising for the project reaches $100 million, the façade would read: “The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump Endowed by the Trump Kennedy Center Fund.”
And the board voted to name the grounds beneath the venue “President Donald J. Trump Plaza.”
“There is no renaming here,” Justice Department lawyer Brantley Mayers told Cooper.
But Beatty’s lawyers called those moves a “breathtaking” and “jawdropping” defiance of Cooper’s previous order removing his name from the facade. The lawyers also called Trump “delusional” for arguing that the renovation could only succeed with Trump’s fundraising and recognition.
“We view this as outright defiance” of the court’s prior order to remove Trump’s name, lawyer Nathaniel Zelinsky told Cooper.
Cooper suggested under the government’s perspective the garage could be named after former President Barack Obama and another part of the facility after former President George W. Bush.
“The whole place would be for sale,” Cooper said.
The board agreed to close the main building for two years while holding performances of the National Symphony Orchestra, the Kennedy Center Honors and Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at other locations. The board estimated that a two-year project would cost $280 million while a four-year project would cost $580 million.
Lutnick, whose wife Allison serves on the board, told reporters before the hearing that chunks of concrete fell off the ceiling of the parking garage, which would have been a “unmitigated disaster” if arts patrons had been there.
“It’s had decades of financial neglect,” Lutnick said. “If we walk into it now, it feels like we’re going back in time. It’s just not beautiful, it’s just not extraordinary so the president set out to solve that.”
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