Workers on Saturday began removing President Donald Trump’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’s name on the building.
Scaffolding was erected Friday around a section of the building that includes Trump’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.
In the filing, the Kennedy Center offered assurance that the “removal work is presently ongoing” and would “conclude in the early hours of the morning.”
A few hours later, workers began covering the scaffolding with tarps before they eventually started taking down Trump’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.
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 “take it down.” Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, an ex-officio board member who sued to have Trump’s name removed from the building, was spotted at one point on the plaza.
On Friday, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper denied the Trump administration’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’s name from some of its branding ahead of the Friday, June 12 deadline.
“These efforts undermine the notion that Defendants face irreparable harm in complying with the order in full,” Cooper wrote.
The judge had previously ruled that the Kennedy Center board of trustees — whose members were handpicked by Trump and who subsequently named him chair of the board — cannot unilaterally change the center’s name.
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“Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,” Cooper wrote.
The Trump administration also filed an appeal with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday. The court did not take action.
Trump had railed against Cooper’s decision, calling the judge “crooked” and threatening to remove his involvement in the organization.
In the days that followed, the Kennedy Center’s Office of General Counsel issued notices to staff to refer to the organization by its original name. Trump’s name was dropped from the Kennedy Center website and in its communications to members.
A June 4 memo to staff from the Kennedy Center’s Office of General Counsel said email signatures, letterhead and other documents must reflect the name as “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts” or “Kennedy Center.”
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
Fallon Gallagher is a legal affairs reporter for MS NOW.