President Donald Trump’s name was added to the facade of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Friday, a day after the center’s board voted to rename that Washington, D.C., institution the “Trump-Kennedy Center.”
Workers affixed Trump’s name to the building, above the center’s original name.
The center’s website had already been updated on Thursday to say it is now “The Trump Kennedy Center.”
“Our Chairman, President Donald J. Trump, has not only saved this historic building but also created a truly bipartisan place to celebrate the arts,” the center said in a statement Friday.
Trump took effective control of the Kennedy Center in February, naming himself its chair and appointing the Board of Trustees, which voted for the new name on Thursday.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday that the board “voted unanimously” for the name change.
But Rep. Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat who is an ex officio member of the board, disputed Leavitt’s claim.
“As I tried to push my button to voice my concern, to ask questions, and certainly not to vote in support of this, I was muted,” Beatty said in a post to X. “Yet it was said at the end it was a unanimous vote.”
Other board members also said they were muted during the vote, and that they would have voted against the name change.
The law establishing the center in the 1960s says its name cannot be changed.
And the law says “no additional memorials or plaques in the nature of memorials shall be designated or installed in the public areas of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.”
Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., said in a social media post that work on the building “needs to stop as it’s illegal to change without Congress.”
Missouri Republican Rep. Robert Onder in July proposed a bill to change the Kennedy Center’s to that of Trump’s. The bill has no cosponsors.
Kennedy family members were outraged by the center’s name change.
“It is beyond comprehension that this sitting president has sought to rename this great memorial dedicated to President Kennedy,” said Maria Shriver, who is a niece of the late president Kennedy. “It is beyond wild that he would think adding his name in front of President Kennedy’s name is acceptable.”
Kennedy’s grandson, Jack Schlossberg, suggested that the renamined was spurred by his decisoin to run for a House seat from New York.
“Trump explicitly motivated to act by JACK FOR NEW YORK,” he said in a social media post. “Our campaign represents everything Trump can’t stand or defeat.”
CNBC requested comment from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for comment. He is the nephew of the late president.
