The Kennedy Center installed President Donald Trump’s name on its exterior Friday morning, a dramatic change to a building established by law as a “living memorial” to a slain president.
On Thursday, the center’s board, made up of loyalists with Trump as chair, voted to rename the institution “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.” Trump called it a surprise, but his name was up within about 24 hours.
For much of the morning, wide strips of blue tarp obscured a portion of the building and loud drilling could be heard as a small team on scaffolding started work on the signage. Inside the center, large letters spelling “Trump” could be seen on the floor of the entry hall, according to a photograph obtained by The Washington Post. Signage elsewhere around the exterior of the institution, including pole banners, remained unchanged.
By late morning, at least half a dozen National Guard members assembled near the new sign, which was completed by 12:30 p.m.
Thursday’s vote by the board of trustees drew swift condemnation from Kennedy family members and Democratic leaders, who called it illegal. Legal experts said that only Congress can change the center’s official name and that this name change violates the norm for memorials.
“This needs to stop as it’s illegal to change without Congress,” Sen. Andy Kim (D-New Jersey) wrote on X Friday, reviewing early photos of the signage work.
The law establishing the arts venue and presidential memorial designates it as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. It also mandates that the board of trustees “assure” that “no additional memorials or plaques in the nature of memorials shall be designated or installed in the public areas” of the building.
The Kennedy Center did not respond to questions about the sign’s installation.
The board meeting took place at the Palm Beach, Florida, home of board member Andrea Wynn and emeritus trustee Steve Wynn, according to a notice. Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), an ex officio board member, called into the meeting, but was muted when she tried to speak out, according to several prominent Democrats who are also ex officio board members. In a statement Thursday, they denounced the change, which they said was made “without legal authority.”
Beatty told The Post that the members will keep pushing back and that “Trump backs down oftentimes when he sees public pressure.”
Only Congress has the authority to change the institution’s legal name, said Emily Sexton, a former lawyer for the Kennedy Center, but “in the meantime, lots of organizations have legal names and trade names which are different.”
“Because the Kennedy Center is not just a federal institution or a performing arts center, but is a memorial to a slain president, changing the exterior signage feels different,” Sexton added. “It is arguably also a direct contravention” of the law prohibiting additional memorials in the building. “But that prohibition is only as good as having someone to enforce it, and it’s not clear who would do that.”
Roger Colinvaux, a law professor at Catholic University, wrote in an email that “the law is as clear as can be” in that it “explicitly directs the board of the bureau to name the building ‘the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.’”
“I would argue that, under the statute, the board that voted to change the name not only does not have the authority, but that each member by so voting violated their duty,” he said, pointing to the law that instructs board members to maintain and administer “a living memorial” to Kennedy. “It is not meant to be a memorial to any other person,” he said.
The issue “really comes down to accountability and enforcement. Congress should act to stop violations of its directives,” Colinvaux said.
Phil Hackney, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh and a specialist in nonprofit tax-exempt organizations, echoed Colinvaux’s concerns in an interview and said, “When you operate outside of the law, you tick people off.”
“In my experience, both watching nonprofits and watching the government, eventually, there is a comeuppance,” he said.
Hackney said that, beyond legalities, the name change to a memorial for an assassinated president is “cutting against a societal norm that’s pretty intense” and “going against a solemn place.”
For months, Trump had repeatedly joked about the name change, including at the Kennedy Center Honors earlier this month. The center has seen a year of upheaval since Trump overhauled the institution in February, sparking a wave of firings and resignations. Ticket sales have fallen sharply, according to an October analysis by The Post, and many artists have said they will no longer perform there. The new leadership has boasted of hefty fundraising tallies and has begun to ramp up bookings for Christian and right-wing events.
Sneak Peek
— The Trump Kennedy Center (@kencen) December 19, 2025
“The Trump Kennedy Center shows a bipartisan commitment to the Arts,” Kennedy Center President Richard Grenell wrote Thursday on X. Officials did not cite an authority for the board’s ability to change the institution’s name.
Erika Doss, an American studies professor at the University of Notre Dame who has written extensively on monuments and memorials, said in an email that most such sites are named “after a person or event has become historical, even if only by a decade or so.” But, she added, “Trump wants to be historical now, hence his demands for fake peace prizes and building naming rights,” calling it a “a PR move for his image.”
The president has leaned into his real estate background, touting changes to the Kennedy Center’s physical structure and telling reporters at the Honors this month, “I build better than anybody.”
Earlier this month, Trump’s administration renamed the building that houses the U.S. Institute of Peace downtown, emblazoning “Donald J. Trump” in several areas of the structure.
“Boy, that is beautiful,” Trump said at the time, thanking Secretary of State Marco Rubio for putting his name up.
Rep. Bob Onder (R-Missouri) in July introduced legislation to rename the Kennedy Center after Trump. Since the board’s vote, Onder has promoted the bill on social media, writing, “I’ve got it covered!” In a statement to The Post, Onder said that Trump is “working to preserve the integrity of the fine arts by ending woke programming” and that he is “excited by the board’s decision to change the name and look forward to working with the White House to help make this happen.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) said on social media Friday that he would introduce legislation prohibiting the naming of federal buildings after sitting presidents. Senate Democrats, meanwhile, are investigating the Kennedy Center over allegations of wasteful spending and improper deals with political allies. (Grenell called the accusations false “partisan attacks.”)
Advocacy for the arts “endures as a vital part” of the Kennedy legacy, the nonpartisan White House Historical Association says, noting that the Kennedys hosted numerous concerts and performances.
In a speech on art and politics a year before his assassination, delivered at a fundraising event for the National Cultural Center, which would later become the Kennedy Center, Kennedy expounded on the responsibility of a “great democracy” to support the arts.
Behind the “storm of daily conflict and crisis” and the “tumult of political struggle,” Kennedy said, artists continue “the quiet work of centuries, building bridges of experience between peoples, reminding man of the universality of his feelings and desires and despairs, and reminding him that the forces that unite are deeper than those that divide.”
Trump, not known for close involvement with the arts in his first term, has made sweeping changes this year. He broke with tradition by skipping the Kennedy Center Honors during his first administration, after some artists said they would protest him, and again by hosting the event earlier this month. His administration this year has stripped arts funding, criticized Smithsonian museum exhibits, and reiterated calls for eliminating the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities.
Trump has attacked arts institutions with politicized language, accusing the nation’s museums, for instance, of being the “last remaining segment of ‘WOKE’” and criticizing previous Kennedy Center honorees as “radical left lunatics.”
The president’s rhetoric and takeover of the center have rattled the arts community, keeping some artists and longtime supporters away.
As crews continued with the installation Friday, several people walking by stopped to take pictures and observe the workers.
Christine and Chris Magee arrived at the center Friday morning to return their tickets for an upcoming performance by the Washington Chorus on Saturday.
“After we found out that they’re changing the name, we just can’t bring ourselves to go to that concert tomorrow,” said Chris Magee, who was carrying a protest sign that read “Convict.” The couple said they were told they couldn’t hold up the sign outside the building without a permit.
“We love the Washington Chorus, and we’ll support them,” said Christine Magee, a former director of education for Very Special Arts at the Kennedy Center. “But how could [Trump] put his name on a building without the American people’s [and] Congress’s approval?”
Andrew Howard captured photos and video of the scene and loudly protested to the media and construction workers as he walked his dog Friday.
“This is a desecration of this building,” he said. “I‘m going to film this for my kids and my grandkids. I want them to see the day democracy died in Washington, D.C. It’s today.”
The post Kennedy Center adds Trump’s name to building, despite legal concerns appeared first on Washington Post.
