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Workers began tearing President Donald Trump’s name off the Kennedy Center facade Friday after an appeals court denied a request from the Kennedy Center’s board to block a judge’s ruling that Trump’s name be removed.
Workers erected scaffolding around the Washington, D.C., landmark Friday and began removing the Trump name from the signage that had previously read “The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts.”
The Kennedy Center board had approved the addition of Trump’s name in December, claiming that the move was in recognition of Trump’s accomplishments in saving “the institution from financial ruin and physical destruction.”
Workers affixed Trump’s name to the facade the next day.
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Construction workers build scaffolding near the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts sign in Washington, D.C., on June 12, 2026. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Now, however, the Trump name is coming down, despite numerous attempts at stays from the Kennedy Center board.
The board filed both a stay pending appeal and an immediate administrative stay, arguing the name should not be removed before the matter gets an appellate review.
But an appeals court denied the request for an immediate administrative stay.
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People watch construction workers build scaffolding near the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts sign in Washington, D.C., on June 12, 2026. The Kennedy Center board sought an emergency appeal to block a court order requiring the removal of President Trump’s name, but a judge denied the request. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
The board then filed an emergency motion with the U.S. Court of Appeals, but a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit denied it.
The board had requested a pause in the enforcement of Judge Christopher Cooper’s ruling that Trump’s name be removed, but Cooper, a U.S. District judge, denied the request Friday.
Cooper maintained in an opinion on his ruling that the Kennedy Center’s name can only be changed or modified through an act of Congress.
Trump slammed Cooper’s decision in an excoriating late May Truth Social barrage, writing “Trump Hating Judge wants to keep it open because his wife probably told him to do so,” while pointing out the fact that Cooper’s wife, Amy Jeffress, is a former Obama-era Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney who represented a number of high-profile Trump critics.
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A composite photo shows a worker on a lift at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, alongside U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, who ruled that President Donald Trump’s name be removed from the building. (Getty / and the U.S. District Court of D.C.)
Fox News Digital contacted the White House and the Kennedy Center for additional comment.
Fox News’ Jasmine Baehr and Bill Mears contributed to this report.
