KenCen Board Votes to Inscribe Trump’s Name on Building

The board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts voted on Thursday to inscribe President Trump’s name on the building, according to two people with direct knowledge of the proceedings who spoke to The New York Times. The move came after the board, comprised almost entirely of Trump nominees, voted to move forward with the President’s plan to close the complex for renovations.

Trump’s name was added to the center last year but was removed back in June after U.S. District Court Judge Christopher R. Cooper found that only Congress has the authority to change the institution’s name. According to the new resolution, the words “Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump” are now to be inscribed immediately below the building’s main signage.

The decision directs officials to act by “all legal means” but would appear to seek to bypass the federal law concerning the Kennedy Center that “no additional memorials or plaques in the nature of memorials shall be designated or installed in the public areas.”

“It is hereby resolved that the center desires to recognize and honor President Trump’s existential and unprecedented contributions to the survival of the center by all legal means,” said the resolution. Discussions apparently included the potential to designate the Center’s grounds as the “President Donald J. Trump Plaza.”

“This latest development is a transparent effort to circumvent the court's ruling and flies in the face of the statutes that Congress passed,” said Representative Joyce Beatty, the Ohio Democrat and ex officio board member who sued the board last year. “I will continue to fight for this treasured national monument.”

The Times also reported that Trump, who was voted in as the board’s chairman after installing himself last year as a trustee, called into the meeting and criticized opponents of his closure plan. The newly written 163-page document advocates a $250 million “renewal” project that would temporarily move the 3,000-pound bronze bust of Kennedy to the building known as the Reach. Alongside structural repairs, new marble floors, and $11.8 million in “acoustical improvements,” Axios reported that “VIPs would get their own restroom—no more using the public facilities—inside a renovated Reception Room.”

As yet, it remains unclear whether the center will pursue the construction plan as it is laid out in the new report.

In a phone interview following the vote, Trump ally Paolo Zampolli told The Times that the trustees were aiming to make the Kennedy Center a more sought-after sightseeing destination. Regarding the new inscription, it is his personal intention, he said, to ensure that Mr. Trump’s name should be “as big as it can get.”

The New York Times