Donald Trump may have his name on building but it’s still Kennedy Centre to Congress

Trump made a series of leadership changes at the centre shortly after he took office in 2025 that ended with the Republican president’s handpicked board of trustees voting in December to rebrand the venue as the Trump Kennedy Centre by adding his name to Kennedy’s on the exterior of the building and the website.

The Kennedy Centre said the vote recognised Trump’s work to revitalise an institution he had criticised as being too liberal-leaning.

But since he took over the centre, numerous artists have cancelled appearances, ticket sales and attendance have fallen, and viewership for December’s broadcast of the Kennedy Centre Honours programme — which he predicted would soar because he was the host was down by about 35 per cent compared to the 2024 show.

After Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, Congress passed a law the following year naming the centre as a living memorial to the Democrat.

The law explicitly prohibits the board of trustees from making the centre into a memorial to anyone else, and from putting another person’s name on the building’s exterior. The board’s vote is the subject of a lawsuit in federal court.