In today’s chapter of the never-ending lawfare against Donald Trump and the activist judiciary that loves to entertain it, we have some rulings from a federal judge on the changes made to the Kennedy Center.
Just to recap, when Trump took office in 2025, he cleaned up the Kennedy Center board of trustees, appointing a more MAGA-friendly group of people who ultimately voted to rebrand it as the Trump-Kennedy Center. The goal was to honor the president and clean up a D.C. institution that had long been neglected and mismanaged by Democrats and allowed to go extremely woke, whether it was the progressive programming that appealed to only a small segment of the population or the overuse of pronouns in staff emails.
So Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) and a bunch of left-wing activists got all upset over it and sued, asking a judge to keep the original name: The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Here’s more on that from Beatty’s attorney:
Can the Board of the Kennedy Center — in direct contradiction of the governing statutes — rename this sacred memorial to John F. Kennedy after President Donald J. Trump? The answer is, unequivocally, ‘no.’ By renaming the Center — in violation of the law — Defendants have breached the terms of the trust and their most basic fiduciary obligations as trustees. Shortly after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Congress designated the Kennedy Center as the ‘sole national memorial to the late’ President in the nation’s capital.
The White House responded:
While the Democrats neglected the Trump-Kennedy Center for years, President Trump immediately stepped up to rescue and revitalize the institution. The newly named Trump-Kennedy Center proudly recognizes President Trump’s incredible contributions including strengthening its finances, leading major building upgrades, removing divisive woke programming and transforming it into a welcoming destination that everyone can enjoy under his leadership. Only deranged Democrats could oppose these efforts.
And today, Barack Obama-appointed judge Christopher R. Cooper responded, claiming the board’s decision to add Trump’s name was unlawful and ordered that it must be removed from the website and the building. He also blocked the Trump administration’s plans to close the center for two years for repairs beginning this summer.
On the name change, Cooper essentially said that Congress named it after JFK in 1964, and only Congress can change the name now. “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. Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,” he wrote in his 94-page decision. The Trump administration has 14 days to make the changes.
Funny, I thought the left was all about tearing down old statues…
His declarations on the repairs are a little murkier. He called the board’s vote an “ill-informed and seemingly preordained decision.” Here’s more from Cooper:
The trustees might have assessed the propriety of closure in a number of prudent ways. This was not one. However, the preliminary injunction will not prevent the Center from moving forward with the capital repair work it has planned, which the record demonstrates is sorely needed. Nor will it categorically prohibit the Board from closing the Center should it come to this decision anew after independently balancing its multiple obligations to the Center in a prudent fashion.
So essentially, he’s admitting that the place is falling apart and needs repairs, but you can’t close it to make them if that’s what Trump and his board want? How transparent can you be?
Look, I couldn’t care less about the Kennedy Center or Trump-Kennedy Center or whatever you want to call it. Going to some show at an overly politicized elite playground in Washington, D.C., is not my idea of a good time. But this is getting tedious. I’m sick of these people wasting our tax dollars because they don’t like the president. And I’m especially sick of activist judges who refuse to do their actual jobs.
Editor’s Note: President Trump is leading America into the “Golden Age” as Democrats try desperately to stop it.
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