Left inset: President Donald Trump speaks in the East Room of the White House, July 16, 2026, in Washington (Saul Loeb/Pool via AP, File). Main: The front of the Kennedy Center remains covered as U.S. President Donald Trump attempts to add his name to the front of the building despite court rulings against his efforts. (Photo by Dominic Gwinn / SOPA Images/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images).
On the eve of a scheduled emergency motion hearing in Washington, D.C., a congresswoman urged a federal judge not to drink the "cocktail of fabulous pronouncements and stunning inaccuracies" the Trump administration has offered about the Kennedy Center's "death spiral."
Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, filed a reply in support of emergency injunctive relief on Wednesday, asking U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper to put a stop, once and for all, to the administration's attempt to put President Donald Trump's name on a building dedicated by statute to assassinated former President John F. Kennedy.
The Barack Obama-appointed jurist — who is married to one of former President Joe Biden's attorneys — ruled in late May that the Kennedy Center's board "overstepped its statutory bounds by unilaterally renaming the Kennedy Center after President Trump."
Thereafter, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit left Trump out in the cold, refusing to restore his name to the building's facade.
Not giving up, the Trump-stacked board announced it would have an August meeting to "decide on future construction and operational plans for the Center." Meanwhile, tarp and scaffolding continued to block JFK's name.
Beatty, a member of the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees, one week ago filed an emergency motion lamenting that it was "déjà vu all over again," once the board voted to put Trump's name back on the building.
"In an act of obvious petulance, however, Defendants hung a tarp over the building's iconic lettering, obscuring President Kennedy's name from the face of the institution meant to memorialize his legacy," the motion said. "Now, in a new and breathtaking act of defiance of Congress and of this Court, Defendants have voted to return President Trump's name to the Kennedy Center's facade. This time, Trump's name will appear on the building's front portico not once, but twice."
Cooper acted quickly, setting a hearing for 2 p.m. on Thursday.
Ahead of the hearing, the DOJ claimed that the Kennedy Center "is in terrible trouble," in "crisis […] so acute that, without the Trump Administration, its people, and President Trump, the Center cannot survive, either structurally or financially."
Beatty answered Wednesday that the administration cannot complain about a purported "death spiral" of its own creation.
"In plain English, Defendants have not-so-subtly said: 'What a nice Kennedy Center you have here. What a shame should something happen to it.' This is a breathtaking assault on the rule of law. It is delusional. And it must stop," the filing said. "It also bears emphasis that Defendants are actively misleading the Court and the public about the facts."
"As the Washington Post recently reported, the Kennedy Center is in serious financial distress because of Defendants' effort to rebrand the institution. Moreover, internal documents confirm 'that leaders knew' ticket sales and donations 'were cratering even as they publicly portrayed Trump's takeover as a financial rescue'—including before this Court," Beatty added. "This doublespeak is unconscionable."
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