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{"id":24274,"date":"2026-06-14T08:22:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T08:22:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/workers-begin-removing-trumps-name-from-kennedy-center-after-last-minute-bid-to-fight-ruling\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T08:22:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T08:22:17","slug":"workers-begin-removing-trumps-name-from-kennedy-center-after-last-minute-bid-to-fight-ruling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/workers-begin-removing-trumps-name-from-kennedy-center-after-last-minute-bid-to-fight-ruling\/","title":{"rendered":"Workers begin removing Trump\u2019s name from Kennedy Center after last-minute bid to fight ruling"},"content":{"rendered":"<section>\n<div>\n<p><time datetime=\"2026-06-13T06:56:40-04:00\">Jun. 13, 2026, 6:56 AM EDT<\/time><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Workers on Saturday began removing President Donald Trump&rsquo;s name from the facade of the Kennedy Center, after a federal judge struck down a last-ditch attempt by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ms.now\/news\/kennedy-center-board-seeks-delay-removal-trumps-name-friday\">the board to keep Trump&rsquo;s name <\/a>on the building.<\/p>\n<p>Scaffolding was erected Friday around a section of the building that includes Trump&rsquo;s name, but shortly after midnight, the Kennedy Center asked a judge to extend the deadline until noon Eastern Time on Saturday because of thunderstorms that had swept through the Washington area, causing a delay.<\/p>\n<p>In the filing, the Kennedy Center offered assurance that the &ldquo;removal work is presently ongoing&rdquo; and would &ldquo;conclude in the early hours of the morning.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>A few hours later, workers began covering the scaffolding with tarps before they eventually started taking down Trump&rsquo;s name. They packed up and left the site around 3:30 a.m., though the tarps remained, leaving it impossible to determine if all the letters had been removed.<\/p>\n<p>Dozens of people spent hours Friday on the plaza in front of the Kennedy Center taking pictures and cheering occasionally as they broke into chants of &ldquo;take it down.&rdquo; Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, an ex-officio board member who sued to have Trump&rsquo;s name removed from the building, was spotted at one point on the plaza.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper denied the Trump administration&rsquo;s request to issue a stay on his May 29 ruling while an appeal plays out. Cooper wrote that the center had already taken steps to comply with that ruling by removing Trump&rsquo;s name from some of its branding ahead of the Friday, June 12 deadline.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;These efforts undermine the notion that Defendants face irreparable harm in complying with the order in full,&rdquo; Cooper wrote. <\/p>\n<p>The judge had previously ruled that the Kennedy Center board of trustees &mdash;&nbsp;whose members were handpicked by Trump and who subsequently named him chair of the board &mdash; cannot unilaterally change the center&rsquo;s name.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,&rdquo; Cooper wrote. <\/p>\n<p>The Trump administration also filed an appeal with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday. The court did not take action. <\/p>\n<p>Trump had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ms.now\/news\/trump-artists-musicians-washington-america-250-anniversary\">railed against Cooper&rsquo;s decision<\/a>calling the judge &ldquo;crooked&rdquo; and threatening to remove his involvement in the organization. <\/p>\n<p>In the days that followed, the Kennedy Center&rsquo;s Office of General Counsel issued notices to staff to refer to the organization by its original name. Trump&rsquo;s name was dropped from the Kennedy Center website and in its communications to members. <\/p>\n<p>A June 4&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/trump-kennedy-center-b27248c91b59594da972b95191c4035f\">memo to staff<\/a>from the Kennedy Center&rsquo;s Office of General Counsel said email signatures, letterhead and other documents must reflect the name as &ldquo;The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts&rdquo; or &ldquo;Kennedy Center.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p>Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Fallon Gallagher is a legal affairs reporter for MS NOW. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ms.now\/news\/judge-denies-kennedy-center-boards-request-to-keep-trumps-name\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jun. 13, 2026, 6:56 AM EDT Workers on Saturday began removing President Donald Trump&rsquo;s name from the facade of the Kennedy Center, after a federal judge struck down a last-ditch attempt by the board to keep Trump&rsquo;s name on the building. Scaffolding was erected Friday around a section of the building that includes Trump&rsquo;s name, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24275,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trump"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}