Kennedy Center Must Remove Trump’s Name From Building, Judge Orders – The New York Times

A federal judge ordered on Friday that the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts remove President Trump’s name from the building’s facade and all official branding and temporarily blocked the institution from shuttering this summer for renovations.

Mr. Trump railed against the judge’s ruling in an incensed social media post, suggesting that he was considering casting the Kennedy Center aside as one of his personal projects. The president wrote that unless he was free to decide the center’s trajectory, he had “no interest in continuing what could only be a hopeless journey.”

“Unfortunately, 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, much as I have done, in many cases, throughout my life,” he wrote.

Judge Christopher R. Cooper, of the Federal District Court in Washington, determined that the board’s decision to add Mr. Trump’s name to the Kennedy Center violated a law passed by Congress in 1964 that made “crystal clear” the institution was to be named for former President John F. Kennedy.

“Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,” the judge wrote in a 94-page opinion. He ordered that the 18 letters added to the center’s front portico be removed within two weeks.

The center’s board of trustees, a vast majority of whom are allies of Mr. Trump, voted in December to add the president’s name to the performing arts center. Less than a day later, new lettering was added to the building’s marble facade, which now reads: “The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”