Washington heard another fight over Donald J. Trump’s reach this week, this time over the John F. Kennedy Center For The Performing Arts. On Wednesday morning, a federal judge weighed arguments over whether the president can add his own name to the center and shut it for two years of renovation.
The challenge now before the court was brought by a coalition of eight preservation groups, which say Trump pushed out the center’s board of trustees, installed loyalists and then declared himself chairman. They also say he has ignored environmental and historic preservation laws in pressing ahead with the closure plan.
The dispute matters because the naming fight is no longer just symbolic. A lawsuit filed in December by Rep. Joyce Beatty said Trump’s move to rename the building the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts was a “flagrant violation of the rule of law,” and argues that any change to the Kennedy Center’s name requires an act of Congress. In court, Nathaniel Zelinsky told the judge the administration was taking more than a place on a facade. “They are embezzling the center’s goodwill and its good name,” he said. “The center is named for John F. Kennedy and John F. Kennedy alone.”
Trump has cast the renovation in grander terms. On Truth Social, he described the project as “Construction, Revitalization, and Complete Rebuilding” to create “a new and beautiful Landmark,” language that suggests a scope beyond the routine repairs and maintenance already authorized by Congress. The preservation groups say that broader vision is exactly the problem, because the shutdown they are challenging would last two years and, they argue, collide with laws meant to protect historic property.
The Kennedy Center case is part of a broader legal fight over Trump’s construction plans. In October, he demolished the East Wing of the White House and began building a 90,000-square-foot ballroom in its place without consulting Congress. The project carries a $400 million price tag, and a federal judge last month temporarily blocked construction until the White House receives congressional authorization.
That leaves the administration fighting on two fronts: over the name on one of Washington’s best-known cultural institutions and over the walls rising at the White House. The court challenge around the Kennedy Center now turns on a simple question with institutional stakes — whether Trump can treat a congressionally rooted landmark as if it were his own project.
