Trump’s name removed from Kennedy Center hours after missing deadline
The long fight about the President’s name being added to the Center ended in the wee hours of the morning
The long fight about the President’s name being added to the Center ended in the wee hours of the morning on Saturday as Rep. Joyce Beatty cheered that the removal of his name is what a “fight for justice” looks like.
Work crews completed the removal of Donald Trump‘s name from the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts around 3:10 a.m. EST on Saturday, hours after a court-ordered deadline that was challenged by the Trump-appointed board’s leadership.
Scaffolding was erected early Friday as workers prepared to remove Trump’s name from the building’s facade, yet for hours, little to no work was done. A representative for the Kennedy Center requested that a judge extend the deadline to Saturday, one day before Trump’s 80th birthday, due to thunderstorms in the D.C. area.
In the filing to the judge, the Kennedy Center assured that “removal work is presently ongoing” and would “conclude in the early hours of the morning.”
The judge rebuffed the request for an extension of the deadline, prompting the removal in the early hours.
Rep. Joyce Beatty, an ex officio board member who sued to have Trump’s name removed, was spotted near the building earlier in the day. Later, she shared a video on Instagram doing Trump’s “dance” in celebration of the moment.
In a video uploaded Saturday, Beatty confirmed that Trump’s name had been removed, despite a tarp covering the site of the removal.
“The letters, the name of Donald Trump is down,” Beatty said. “This is what it looks like when you fight for justice.”
During his first term, Trump largely ignored the Kennedy Center. When he returned to office in January 2025, he promptly wielded unprecedented influence on the Center, ousting its leadership and installing handpicked appointees to the board, including himself. In the wake of those decisions, several notable celebrities canceled performances at the venue and Shonda Rhimes, then a board member, stepped away.
After a judge ruled that Trump’s name be removed from the Center and that only Congress could approve changes to its name, the Trump Administration was blocked from closing the cultural arts center for 2 years due to proposed renovations. During its attempts to fight the ruling in removing Trump’s name, the Center has already begun removing his name from its website, e-mail signatures. letterheads and other documents, which have been restored to the original names of “The John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts” or simply “Kennedy Center.”
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