Trump vents about judge’s Kennedy Center rebuff
President Donald Trump branded the federal judge who blocked the renovation of the Kennedy Center as an “anti-Trumper” and predicted that the nation’s premier performing arts center, which he wants to close for a two-year maintenance, “will be closed soon, probably never to open again.”
In a lengthy post on the Truth Social platform, Trump was outraged by Friday’s decision by U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, who also ordered Trump’s name removed from the center.
Clearly enraged by his latest legal setback, Cooper said it was “impossible for me to be treated fairly,” attributing Cooper’s decision to previous losses, including the Supreme Court’s rejection of sweeping tariffs in February.
His post was intended to defend the project, even though he said he had given up on it.
Hours after Cooper’s decision, Trump said he was withdrawing from the renovations and making arrangements to cede control of the site, which will be known as the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts until the Republican president’s second term, to Congress.
In another post on Saturday, Trump referenced the episode at the Kennedy Center while addressing a group of musicians who had abandoned the nation’s 250th anniversary celebration.
“Cancel,” Trump wrote, “just as I canceled my involvement with the failure and unsafety of being at the Kennedy Center because a Highly Conflicted, Crooked Federal Judge said I should not be allowed to spend my time and money to MAKE THE CENTER GREAT AGAIN.”
Trump claimed that the Kennedy Center, named after the late Democratic president and opened in 1971, was “rusted, rotten, mouse- and bug-infested” and that “the new Building will be unique.”
Cooper said the center board’s March 16 vote to close the venue was “ill-informed and seemingly predetermined” and disregarded its legal obligations.
The management had announced that the work would start in July and last for approximately two years. Cooper’s decision halted those plans.
The judge also found that the board “exceeded its legal limits” by adding Trump’s name to the center.
Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change that, he said.
Cooper ordered Trump’s name removed within two weeks.
