Trump's Board Voted Him a New Kennedy Centre Fund Hours After a Judge Tore His Name Off the Building

Donald Trump's hand-picked Kennedy Centre board has voted to set up a new endowment in his name, even as a federal court forces that same name off the front of the building.

The board of trustees, chaired by the president and stacked with his appointees, approved what it calls the Trump Kennedy Centre Fund at a meeting on Thursday, 11 June 2026. The vote was unanimous, and it came in the middle of a frantic effort to comply with a court order stripping Trump's name from the Washington landmark.

Workers prised the gilded lettering from the facade in the early hours of Saturday, 13 June, leaving bare scaffolding and a tarp where the sign had hung.

A Unanimous Vote Behind Closed Doors

The fund is meant to shore up the institution's existing private endowments and its roughly £192 million ($257 million) in federal funding, according to the board.

Roma Davari, the Kennedy Centre's vice-president of public relations, said the establishment of the fund recognises Trump's 'significant contributions and dedication' to the institution, and insisted the board remained 'fully compliant with the court's directive' while it weighed its legal options.

A Kennedy Centre official called the fund 'a landmark commitment to securing the future of the nation's preeminent performing arts institution'. A person with knowledge of the plans said the money would be steered towards the 'physical disrepair' of the building, an area the current board believes earlier leadership left to rot.

At that same Thursday meeting, the trustees also voted to lodge the emergency appeal that the government filed the following day.

The Ruling That Forced Trump's Name Off the Facade

US District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled on 29 May 2026 that the board had acted unlawfully when it bolted the president's name onto the venue, finding that only Congress can rename a memorial Congress created. He called it 'crystal clear' that the Centre was built as a living memorial to John F. Kennedy, and gave officials 14 days to take the name down.

Cooper went further. He restored the voting rights of Rep. Joyce Beatty, the Ohio Democrat and ex officio trustee whose lawsuit drove the case, and he blocked the board's plan to close the Centre for two years of renovations, branding it an 'ill-informed and seemingly preordained decision' and the trustees 'derelict' in reaching it. Beatty first sued in December 2025, arguing the renaming sidestepped Congress and trampled federal law.

The dispute dates back to December 2025, when the Trump-controlled board voted to rebrand the venue as the 'Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Centre for the Performing Arts', with crews affixing the new name to the facade the very next day. Beatty, who says she was blocked from objecting during that meeting, was stripped of her voting rights on the board at the same time. A separate suit brought by a coalition of cultural and preservation groups raised parallel objections, and the judge weighed both.

The Justice Department, now led by Trump's former personal lawyer, Todd Blanche, asked Cooper to pause his order pending the government's appeal. On 12 June, the judge refused, and a three-judge panel of the DC Circuit, made up of one Trump appointee and two Obama appointees, declined to intervene, leaving the deadline intact. The panel ordered Beatty to respond to the stay request by 22 June, with the government's reply due by 29 June.

Refunds, Fundraising and a Fight Far From Over

In its appeal, the government warned that going back to the old name would oblige it to return donations, writing that without 'Trump' on the building 'any and all monies raised or committed would be obligated to be returned, refunded, or terminated'. The same filing leaned on Trump's familiar complaints that the building was in 'bad shape' and would one day be 'the envy of the World'.

Beatty's lawyers hit back hard. In a filing opposing the stay, Democracy Defenders Action and the Washington Litigation Group branded the move 'frivolous' and urged the court to dismiss it. Norm Eisen and Nathaniel Zelinsky, her co-counsel, called the manoeuvre an 'eleventh-hour gambit' born of desperation. Once the lettering came off, Beatty hailed a 'victory' and 'the beginning of returning the Kennedy Centre to the American people'. The removal itself slipped past Cooper's Friday cut-off, after summer storms slowed the work, and the Centre asked the court shortly after midnight for a 12-hour extension until noon.

Trump, who had earlier called the building 'structurally dangerous' and said Cooper should 'be ashamed of himself' and floated handing the Centre back to Congress, will keep his post as chairman of the board, officials confirmed. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new fund.

With the president still in the chair and the appeal still alive, the fight over whose name belongs on the nation's stage is only moving into its next act.