A federal judge has blocked Donald Trump from renaming the Kennedy Center the “Trump-Kennedy Center,” nor can the president close it down for repairs.District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington, D.C. won’t let the president name the iconic performing arts center after himself, noting that Congress made it “crystal clear” that the building is to be named after former President John F. Kennedy, “and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial” based on a “unilateral say-so” from a Trump-appointed board.“Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,” Cooper wrote in Friday’s injunction.The order does not block the Trump administration from moving forward with planned capital repair work, “which the record demonstrates is sorely needed,” Cooper wrote. But the president can’t force the board to close it, he said.The order also does not block the board from closing the center should it “come to this decision anew after independently balancing its multiple obligations to the Center in a prudent fashion,” Cooper wrote.(AFP/Getty)The Kennedy Center’s Board of Trustees — which appointed Trump as a member — “was derelict in discharging the full range of its responsibilities to the Center” by agreeing to close it under the president’s request, according to Cooper. The board based its decision “on an insufficient, one-sided presentation of information and neglected to consider the full range of its statutory obligations and potential adverse consequences of closure on programming and memorial functions,” he wrote.Earlier this week, the center’s executive director Charles Matthew Floca said that stripping Trump’s name from the building’s facade would case significant financial damage, arguing the institution’s funding is inextricably linked to the president.“President Trump’s fundraising on behalf of the Center is exemplified by the tens of millions of dollars already raised,” Floca wrote. “Further, the President has committed to raise $150 billion on its behalf from private donors over the next two years.”If his name is taken off the building, “that vital fundraising connection will be severed, causing irreparable harm and fundamentally destabilizing the Center’s development efforts, severely impairing its trust-fund artistic programming, and rendering the continuation of ongoing trust-funded operations financially nonviable,” according to Floca.The ruling follows a December 2025 lawsuit from Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty, who is also an ex officio trustee of the center. She is challenging the board’s decision to permanently add the president’s name to the building, which is set to close on July 4 to “begin Construction of the new and spectacular Entertainment Complex,” according to Trump.Beatty has labelled Trump’s rebranding a “personal vanity project.” “President Trump and his cronies must not be allowed to trample federal law and bypass Congress to feed his ego,” she said in a statement last year. “This entire process has been a complete disgrace to this cherished institution and the people it serves. These unlawful actions must be blocked before any further damage is done.”This is a developing story