![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2026\/06\/trump-1.webp\")
<\/p>\nWASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 <\/p>\n
Scaffolding was erected Friday around a section of the building that includes Trump\u2019s name, but shortly after midnight, the Kennedy Center asked a judge to extend the deadline until noon Eastern Time on Saturday because of thunderstorms that had swept through the Washington area, causing a delay.<\/p>\n
In the filing, the Kennedy Center offered assurance that the \u201cremoval work is presently ongoing\u201d and would \u201cconclude in the early hours of the morning.\u201d<\/p>\n
A few hours later, workers began covering the scaffolding with tarps before they eventually started taking down Trump\u2019s name. They packed up and left the site around 3:30 a.m., though the tarps remained, leaving it impossible to determine if all the letters had been removed.<\/p>\n
Dozens of people spent hours Friday on the plaza in front of the Kennedy Center taking pictures and cheering occasionally as they broke into chants of \u201ctake it down.\u201d Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, an ex-officio board member who sued to have Trump\u2019s name removed from the building, was spotted at one point on the plaza.<\/p>\n
Earlier Friday afternoon, a judge rejected a request to pause the court-ordered deadline. The institution appealed that ruling, an effort that was also rebuffed Friday evening.<\/p>\n
After ignoring the Kennedy Center for much of his first term, Trump has wielded tremendous influence over the venue during his return to office. Just a month into his second term, he ousted the center\u2019s previous leadership and replaced it with a board of trustees that named him chairman. Trump\u2019s name was quickly added to the building.<\/p>\n
In his ruling that only Congress could make changes to the Kennedy Center\u2019s name, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper also blocked the administration from closing the cultural and arts venue for major renovations that had been planned to start in July and last for two years.<\/p>\n
The Kennedy Center\u2019s leadership argued in its appeal Friday that the renovation was badly needed and accused the lower court, in terms that seemed similar to Trump\u2019s speech patterns, of interfering in the effort.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe District Court is not allowing us to close in order to properly fix up and repair the Building, including potentially life threatening structural damage like beams and parking garage ceilings that are rusted, and in serious danger of falling onto people below,\u201d according to the appeal. \u201cIndeed, total collapse!\u201d<\/p>\n
Even as the Kennedy Center has fought efforts to remove Trump\u2019s name from the building, it has taken steps to comply with Cooper\u2019s initial ruling.<\/p>\n
A June 4 memo to staff from the Kennedy Center\u2019s Office of General Counsel said email signatures, letterhead and other documents must reflect the name as \u201cThe John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts\u201d or \u201cKennedy Center.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Kennedy Center\u2019s website has dropped Trump\u2019s name. And an earlier email sent to members offering ticket packages for the June 28 Mark Twain Award for American Humor ceremony came from the Kennedy Center without including Trump\u2019s name.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Workers began removing President Donald Trump\u2019s name from the facade of the Kennedy Center early Saturday, hours after a court-ordered Friday deadline to remove references to Trump from the building and other aspects of the iconic performing arts venue\u2019s operations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":1515375,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1502,1447],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1515374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abc-heads","category-abc-national-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-15 10:38:28","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1515374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1515374"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1515374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1515376,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1515374\/revisions\/1515376"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1515375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1515374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1515374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1515374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}