In Popular Move, Kennedy Center Once Again Named 'Kennedy Center'
Now let's get his name off everything else!
After a federal judge denied an “emergency” motion yesterday and an appeals court refused to overturn that decision, Donald Trump’s stupid name is finally off the front of the John F Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. The work began yesterday when workers erected a large scaffold, an hours-long process that was livestreamed by CSPAN and MS NOW until nearly midnight, and then continued into the wee hours. Last night, a crowd gathered, and eventually cheered and applauded as each section of scaffolding went into place.
Once the scaffolding was up, the area was draped with tarps at around 2 a.m. local time, apparently so the fussy toddler in chief wouldn’t see people cheering as the letters of “THE DONALD J. TRUMP AND” were taken off the building and party like it was our own Berlin Wall Demolition. The original deadline to complete the illegal Trump portion of the sign had been 11:59 Eastern last night, but the judge in the case allowed an extension for the Kennedy Center Board to certify the work was finished by noon Saturday. The Kennedy Center beat that second deadline by an hour, informing the court the sign had been taken down.
Here’s the MS NOW livestream of the tarp-covered site this morning, which is about as exciting as watching paint dry, if the paint were also behind a tarp.
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The Guardian reports that at about 3:00 a.m., a small gap in the side of the tarp allowed bystanders to see workers taking the letters down; here’s a link to an AP photo on Bluesky showing the “D” being removed. (You can also see that in the preview still of the livestream above. We would embed, but content owners are getting awfully tetchy about their IP these days). The work to remove the letters took about 30 minutes; we aren’t sure why the tarp is still up. Maybe to cover whatever cleanup is necessary to restore the marble surfaces so there’s no indication Trump’s name was ever there?
Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), who sits on the Kennedy Center board but was blocked from the illegal vote to add Trump’s name, sued the board to remove it. Two weeks ago, Judge Christopher Cooper ruled that Trump’s name had to go, because only Congress, which authorized the Center in the first place, has the power to make changes. Here’s Rep. Beatty celebrating the court victories last night from inside the Center, dancing to Trump’s favorite anthem of gay liberation.
Now that the Kennedy Center, which by law was always the Kennedy Center, is again named the Kennedy Center, other litigation will be continue ironing out the mess Trump made, including the Washington National Opera’s lawsuit against the federal government claiming that after Trump’s takeover, the new board absconded with the National Opera’s endowment and donations, and locked the opera out of the computer systems it needs to manage its own finances. We bet the Kennedy Center took all the National Opera’s lunches out of the breakroom and stole its mail, even that discreetly-packaged vibrator the WNO ordered on a crazy impulse. Wonkette alum Liz Dye details the insanity in an epic Bluesky thread that under any other president would be difficult to believe. Jesus, those people!
[Guardian / motions and orders in Beatty v. Trump / WaPo / Washington National Opera v. US]
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A big thank you to Rep. Joyce Beatty!
Let the good times roll.
<A US district court judge has ordered the Trump administration to reinstate any history or science materials it removed from the nation’s public monuments, finding that the White House’s actions “set a dangerous precedent of censorship and sanitization”.
The Trump administration has 21 days to comply with the order.>
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/12/judge-national-park-trump-displays