Trump name still must come down from Kennedy Center, judge says

President Donald Trump’s name still needs to come out of the Kennedy Center in Washington; A federal judge ruled Friday to reject a last-minute bid to block an earlier order to remove the name.

The ruling is a loss for the Trump administration, which asked Judge Christopher Cooper in U.S. District Court in D.C. to delay his May 29 ruling that Trump’s name appeared while the appeals court considers the case.

Cooper’s rejection came on the day Trump’s order to remove his name from the façade of the Kennedy Center, the performing arts center named for the late President John F. Kennedy, expired.

Workers erected scaffolding next to the facade on Friday.

The D.C. Court of Appeals could block Cooper’s decision and allow Trump’s name to remain at the forefront while the case continues.

However, the appeal court has not yet decided on the administration’s request in this direction, and it is not known when it will decide.

“Defendants have not met their burden of proving that a stay of the Court’s permanent injunction on the renaming of the Kennedy Center was necessary pending appeal of the underlying order to the D.C. Circuit,” Cooper wrote in Friday’s order. he wrote.

“Most importantly, for the detailed reasons set out in the Court’s decision, the Defendants ‘have failed to show a compelling case’ [they] “They are substantially likely to succeed,” the judge wrote.

Cooper also noted that the administration has “apparently taken significant steps to comply” with his order to remove Trump’s name, such as removing the president’s name from official materials at the center.

“Furthermore, it would not be in the public interest to grant a stay pending appeal, and this is rarely achieved by the ‘continuation’ of ‘illegal’ government action.”

CNBC requested comment on Cooper’s decision from the Department of Justice, which represents the administration.

The center was renamed the Trump Kennedy Center in December, 10 months after Trump removed several trustees from the board and appointed himself as a trustee.

Rep. Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat and a member of the Kennedy Center’s official board of trustees, filed a lawsuit to block the renaming, block the center’s closure for renovations and reverse the May 2025 stripping of voting rights by the board.

In his May 29 ruling in Beatty’s favor, Cooper wrote: “Congress gave its name to the Kennedy Center, and only Congress can change that.”

“The Kennedy Center’s charter makes clear that the Center will be named President [John] “It belongs to Kennedy and cannot bear any other official name or public monument based on a unilateral declaration by the Board,” Cooper wrote.

“The Court should deny Defendants’ eleventh-hour motion for remand pending appeal,” Beatty’s attorneys wrote in a filing Friday morning urging the judge to maintain his decision in the face of the administration’s request.

“The Court granted Defendants an ample fourteen-day grace period to comply with its decision or appeal to the D.C. Circuit instead,” the filing said.

“Defendants initially chose to comply, declined to object, and began restoring the Kennedy Center’s digital and physical footprint in accordance with the Court’s instructions. However, the night before the deadline, Defendants reversed course,” the filing said. “At almost the last possible moment, after giving notice of appeal, they applied to the Court for ‘exceptional relief’ of a stay pending appeal.”

“This latest gambit is pointless. The court should deny this request,” Beatty’s lawyers wrote.