Kennedy Center Board Votes to Add Trump’s Name; Letters Go Up on Facade

The Kennedy Center’s board voted Thursday to rename the institution to include President Donald Trump’s name, and by Friday his name had been added in large letters to the building’s facade, CBS News and NBC News reported.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on X that the board had voted to rename the Kennedy Center the Trump-Kennedy Center, citing Trump’s “unbelievable work” saving the building, CBS reported. The center’s vice president of public relations, Roma Daravi, gave the formal new name as The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. “The unanimous vote recognizes that the current Chairman saved the institution from financial ruin and physical destruction,” she said, according to both outlets. CBS reported that on Friday Trump’s name was added in large letters above the Kennedy name on the building’s facade.

Trump told reporters he was “honored” and “surprised,” and said, “We saved the building. Now it’s very solid, very strong.” Since returning to office he has removed Democratic-appointed trustees and installed allies; the board named him chairman in February, according to both outlets. NBC reported that the new board that elected him included White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and second lady Usha Vance.

The vote was not without dissent. Rep. Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat who serves on the board, disputed that the vote was unanimous: “I was muted on the call and not allowed to speak or voice my opposition to this move. Also for the record, this was not on the agenda.” She added that Congress created the center and “clearly” has a say.

The law is the main question. Congress renamed the center for President John F. Kennedy after his assassination, and CBS noted that any name change would appear to require an act of Congress; a law also restricts additional memorials or plaques in the center’s public areas. NBC reported that experts raised legal hurdles in July when Republican lawmakers introduced bills to rename it for Trump or first lady Melania Trump, and that six Democratic ex officio board members said federal law prohibits changing its name without congressional action. Former Rep. Joseph Kennedy III, a grandnephew of John F. Kennedy, said, according to NBC, that the center “can no sooner be renamed than can someone rename the Lincoln Memorial.”

The center said, according to NBC, that the new name “reflects the unequivocal bipartisan support for America’s cultural center.”