Kennedy Center Loses Trump Name, Still Hopes To Keep Washington National Opera’s Endowment

As of this writing, Donald Trump’s name remains on the side of the Kennedy Center. MSNOW set up this useful livestream, displaying scaffolding and a cherry picker ready to carry out Judge Christopher Cooper’s order to remove it today, but as of now, it is still in place.

On May 29, the court issued a partial summary judgment in favor of Rep. Joyce Beatty, an ex officio member of the Center’s board, who filed a lawsuit to stop the name change and prevent the planned two-year closure. The Center had 14 days to implement the name change, and on June 4, the general counsel sent a memo to the remaining staff directing them to “immediately change email signatures, letterhead, and other documents to reflect the name as ‘The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts,’ or ‘Kennedy Center.’”

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But at the last minute, the Center’s board — filled with notable figures such as Maria Bartiromo, Lee Greenwood, and Dan Scavino, Trump’s former caddy turned deputy chief of staff — had a change of heart. They noted an appeal to the DC Circuit and filed a motion to stay the judge’s ruling.

“Absent a stay, Defendants will be forced to squander time and money—by both removing the signage and then potentially returning it after appeal—that cannot be recovered when Defendants prevail on the merits,” they argued. “That is the very definition of irreparable harm.”

This argument might carry more weight if they had not spent the last 18 months contending that dismantling entire federal agencies, such as the US Institute for Peace and the US African Development Foundation, was not the kind of irreparable harm that could be blocked.

“Additionally, removal of the name threatens to impede the Center’s fundraising efforts and contribute to the financial decline of the Center,” they continued. “This loss of fundraising time and potential is also definitionally irreparable, and the public interest weighs in favor of an economically viable Center.”

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This relies on the unspoken assumption that having Trump’s name on the building will attract donor money, which, as Rep. Beatty highlights in her opposition to the stay, contradicts Judge Cooper’s own conclusion that there “is no proof that current or future donations hinge on President Trump’s name being on the building.”

That fundraising might suffer a blow due to the Center’s own actions, according to a breach of contract complaint filed this morning by the Washington National Opera. WNO has been associated with the Center for 15 years, and most of the opera’s development is managed by the Center — or it was until 2025, when Trump dismissed the old board, installed himself as chair, and appointed professional shitposter Ric Grenell as executive director. According to the complaint, the Center terminated all employees handling development for WNO under their affiliation agreement and largely stopped processing donations for the opera. Grenell removed the agreed-upon subsidies and support for WNO, and then, when the parties agreed to end their relationship, abruptly cut them off from their own records.

Later that day, the Kennedy Center blocked WNO’s access to its electronic data stored on the Kennedy Center’s systems, including WNO’s emails, donor information, meeting minutes, and Board of Trustees records dating back to 2011. The Kennedy Center also locked WNO out of its workplace locations and, shortly after, sent termination letters to WNO employees.

Worse still, the Center refused to return WNO’s endowment funds, which total an alleged $17 million.

“Five months have now passed since the termination of the affiliation, and the Kennedy Center still has not returned the funds to WNO,” they argue. “To the contrary, according to the Kennedy Center’s Chief Financial Officer, the Kennedy Center has put a significant portion of WNO’s money at risk by using it to collateralize the Kennedy Center’s line of credit.”

This will probably make it harder for the Center to raise money, especially since the suit claims the organization could not even be bothered to process donations, resulting in the loss of a $50,000 gift when the Center failed to run a donor’s credit card.

And BREAKING, Judge Cooper denied the motion for stay, “given both the de minimis resources that would be required to restore the Center’s current name in the event of a successful appeal and the lack of record evidence linking increased donations to the current name.”

Let the chiseling begin!

Liz Dye produces the Law and Chaos Substack and podcast. You can subscribe by clicking the logo:

Topics:

Breaking Government

Donald Trump

Government