Workers set up scaffolding at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, US, on Friday, June 12, 2026.
Andrew Leyden | Bloomberg | Getty Images
President Donald Trump’s name has yet to appear at the Kennedy Center in Washington, a judge ruled Friday, rejecting a last-minute request to block an earlier order to remove the name.
The decision is a loss for the Trump administration, which had asked Judge Christopher Cooper to stay his May 29 decision in the US District Court in DC to keep Trump’s name out as the appeals court considers the case.
Cooper’s rejection came on the deadline for his order to have Trump’s name removed from the front of the Kennedy Center, a performing arts landmark named after the late President John F. Kennedy.
Workers set up scaffolding near the facade on Friday.
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals may block Cooper’s order, and allow Trump’s name to remain public as the case continues.
But the appellate court has not issued a decision similar to that of the administration, it is not known when it will issue a decision.
“Defendants have not met their burden of establishing that the Court’s stay of … the suspended sentence regarding the renaming of the Kennedy Center is valid pending an appeal to the DC Circuit,” Cooper wrote in his order Friday.
“Most importantly, due to the detailed reasons set out in the Court’s decision, the defendants have never publicly stated that. [they] they are likely to succeed accordingly,” wrote the judge.
Cooper also noted that the administration “apparently took significant steps to comply” with his order to remove Trump’s name, such as removing the president’s name from official materials at the facility.
“Furthermore, the issuance of a stay pending appeal would not be in the public interest, which is rarely used to ‘encourage’ ‘unlawful’ government action.”
CNBC requested comment from the Justice Department, which represents the administration, about Cooper’s decision.
The center was renamed the Trump Kennedy Center in December, ten months after Trump removed many trustees from the board and installed himself as trustee.
Attorney Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat and former trustee of the Kennedy Center, sued to block the renaming, as well as to block the closing of the center for renovations and to postpone the deprivation of her voting rights until May 2025.
Cooper, in his May 29 decision in favor of Beatty, wrote, “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.”
“The Kennedy Center charter makes it clear that this center will be named after the President [John] Kennedy, and cannot bear any other official name or public memorial based on such a declaration by the Board,” Cooper wrote.
Beatty’s lawyers, when they filed a motion Friday morning urging the judge to uphold his order under the management’s request, wrote, “The court should deny the defendants’ eleventh-hour motion to withdraw the complaint.”
“The court gave the Defendants a reasonable window of fourteen days to comply with its order or appeal to the DC Circuit,” the filing said.
“The Defendants initially chose to comply, declined to appeal, and began restoring the digital and physical footprint of the Kennedy Center, in accordance with the Court’s orders. But on the eve of the deadline, the Defendants reversed course,” the filing said. “About the last time, after filing a notice of appeal, they moved the Court for ‘exceptional relief’ pending the appeal.”
“This latest action is ridiculous. The court should deny the motion,” Beatty’s lawyers wrote.
