A US judge has ordered the removal of Donald Trump‘s name from the title of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, triggering a Truth Social tirade from the US President.
It comes after a turbulent year for the venue, which has seen a host of artists cancelling their performances and boycotting the arts centre after the board that presides over the building voted to rename it the Trump-Kennedy Center last December.
On Friday (May 29), a judge ruled that the Washington DC venue cannot be renamed without congressional approval, meaning Trump’s name must now be taken off the institution’s title, façade, and any other signage or official materials within 14 days.
Per BBC News, a spokesperson for the centre has said they would appeal the name-change order, while Trump posted on social media that he will “be working with Congress to transfer this failing Institution back to them”.
“Unless I am free to do what I do better than anyone else, bring this Institution back, physically, financially, and artistically, I have no interest in continuing what could only be a hopeless journey into ‘NEVER NEVER LAND’,” he wrote on Truth Social in a lengthy post last night.
NOW: A federal judge has ordered that Donald Trump’s name be removed from the Kennedy Center and that officials halt their plan to close the venue for two years.
“The Kennedy Center’s organic statute makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President Kennedy, and… pic.twitter.com/kWJAbn43dC
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) May 29, 2026
The full title of the venue was set to be ‘The Donald J Trump and John F Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts’. However, under the District Judge Christopher Cooper’s order, the name will revert back to the ‘John F Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts’, as it was named upon first opening 1971, in tribute to the assassinated President.
“The Kennedy Center’s organic statute makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board’s unilateral say-so,” Cooper, an Obama-era appointee – something Trump made note of in his social media rant – wrote of the decision.
“Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.”
On Truth Social, Trump said that “Judge Cooper and the Radical Left would rather see it DIE than have President Trump transform it into something that everyone could be proud of”.
Last year, Wicked composer Stephen Schwartz joined the growing list of artists boycotting the venue, saying it no longer represented “the apolitical place for free artistic expression it was founded to be”.
Back in December, South Park writer Toby Morton revealed that he bought the Trump-Kennedy Center domain names months prior in order to troll the US President.
More recently, Milli Vanilli and The Commodores were reported to be among a slate of artists to have dropped out of Trump‘s Freedom 250 celebration at the Great American State Fair.
The event was announced earlier this week and is scheduled to take place at the National Mall in Washington DC between June 25 and July 10. Per an official listing, the “once-in-a-generation celebration” will “unite and showcase all 56 US states and territories in a single World’s Fair-scale event”.
With an initial line-up including the likes of Vanilla Ice, Milli Vanilli, Flo Rida, Poison frontman Bret Michaels, The Commodores, Young MC, Morris Day & The Time, C+C Music Factory and more, the event – much like the Kennedy Centre fiasco – has seen a host of artists drop out in protest of Trump’s actions.
