The board of Washington’s Kennedy Center has voted to close most of the performing arts complex for safety repairs, hours after a federal judge again blocked efforts to add President Donald Trump’s name to the institution.
Trump said the closure was necessary because of the building’s condition, but linked the planned repairs to the naming dispute. Congress has allocated $257m for the work, and Trump said the renovation would proceed only if the board could recognise his role in the project. A partial ceiling collapse in the building’s main hallway earlier this month had increased pressure for repairs.
US District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled that the institution could not install a memorial to Trump without congressional approval. “Simply put, Defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’s blessing,” Cooper said, according to France 24. The Justice Department appealed the decision.
Trump, who was named the centre’s chairman last year by board loyalists, took part in a virtual board meeting. The session included tense exchanges with Representative Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat who has opposed efforts to memorialise Trump at the centre. According to a participant cited by France 24, Trump called Beatty “incompetent” and said she was holding up progress; Beatty replied that he was holding up the country.
The board voted in August to add Trump’s name to the facade, with proposed wording describing the building as restored and renovated by him. Plans also included a further inscription if the Trump Kennedy Center Fund reached $100m and a possible renaming of the plaza in front of the centre.
Cooper previously ruled in May that Trump’s name had been added illegally and ordered its removal. The centre complied in June, although a tarp and scaffolding remained over the area. The legal fight has left the future of one of the country’s most prominent cultural institutions uncertain, while administration lawyers have warned that without recognition of Trump, fundraising for the renovations could fail and the building might eventually need to be demolished.