Why Is the Kennedy Center Board Trying To Add Trump's Name to the Building—Again?

Culture Must they keep chipping away at their dignity? Billy Binion | 8.16.2026 7:00 AM (Photo: CNP/MediaPunch/ MEGA/YBDAN/Newscom/Stevendalewhite/Richard Gunion/Dreamstime. Illustration: Fatima Ruiz) The board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts approved a plan on Thursday to enshrine President Donald Trump's name on the building, setting off a new battle in the war over what mark he should be able to leave on the institution. We have been down this road before. The Kennedy Center's board of trustees "overstepped its statutory bounds by unilaterally renaming the Kennedy Center after President Trump," U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper wrote in May. "In 1964, Congress deliberately rechristened the 'National Cultural Center' the 'John F. Kennedy Center for the Performi