Inset: President Donald Trump speaks outside the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, April 13, 2026, in Washington (AP Photo/Alex Brandon). Background: Workers stand on scaffolding near the signage for the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on June 12, 2026. (Photo by Olivier Douliery/Abaca/Sipa USA – Sipa via AP Images).
The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday told a federal court of appeals the Kennedy Center will become effectively defunct unless the 45th and 47th president’s name is allowed to adorn the building.
The long-running dispute over renaming and renovating the culture hub reached a crescendo earlier this month. In an order enforcing a months-old injunction, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, a Barack Obama appointee, ruled the center’s board simply cannot place President Donald Trump’s name anywhere on the center.
Now, the Trump administration insists that lower court ruling must be overturned or the center itself will fail and literally fall apart.
“The Kennedy Center is in a state of collapse both financially and physically,” the DOJ told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. “The building has become dangerously dilapidated, outdated, and decrepit. As a result, it is fundamentally unsafe to employees and patrons alike. And the Center’s finances are equally in disrepair.”
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To hear the government tell it, the performing arts venue “has been losing” tens of millions of dollars per year for decades and is on track to lose in excess of $100 million per year “long into the future.”
“In short, both physically and financially, the Kennedy Center is in critical condition,” the 71-page appellate brief goes on. “To bring this sick and poorly run facility back to health will require time, energy, talent, and large amounts of money.”
The money is where Trump comes in, the DOJ says.
“Just this month, the Kennedy Center was only able to pay its bills thanks to 17 million dollars raised by President Trump that were infused into the Kennedy Center account to keep it afloat,” the brief continues.
The brief elaborates on Trump’s efforts:
[U]pon taking office in 2025, President Trump, and the Trump Administration, prioritized saving and preserving the Center. The President obtained $258 million in funding from Congress for capital restoration and has marshalled a new donor base to finance an endowment for the Center. The Trump Administration also went to work on plans to rescue the Center from its catastrophic condition and make it a magnificent palace for the future. This is a task which President Trump, given his unrivaled expertise and experience in real estate and construction, and prominence as President, is uniquely qualified to accomplish. And it is a task that will continue into the future.
“Trump, and others in the Administration, will have to work very diligently for years to come to have the Center funded,” the filing continues.
But such outlays are not going to continue unless Trump himself is recognized and named on the property, the government argues.
“[T]he funds are fast being expended, and without the Trump Administration, the accounts will dry up and Center will continue its deterioration into an unsafe structure that will eventually collapse, with a determination to follow on how to proceed, and what to do with the site,” the brief continues. “That is not in the public interest.”
The original order — barring renaming the center itself to include Trump’s name — was issued by the district court in May.
In June, the Trump-appointed Kennedy Center board met again and signed off on a number of more limited proposals to include Trump’s name on various signage, including by inscribing “Renovated and Restored by President Donald J. Trump” and “Endowed by the Trump Kennedy Center Fund” on the facade and by naming the center’s grounds “President Donald J. Trump Plaza.”
On Sept. 15, Cooper ruled those limited efforts are also verboten.
To hear the government tell it, the lower court got it all wrong.
“Plaintiff, a partisan bent on reflexively opposing President Trump at every turn, faces only abstract harms,” the brief says. “On the other hand, the district court’s orders preventing the Board from appropriately recognizing President Trump will cause donors to flee, financial contributions to dry up, and structural rehabilitation to cease. There will simply not be the expertise or funding necessary to rebuild and renovate this decimated structure.”
The filing repeatedly argues doom for the center should Trump not have his name inserted somewhere on the grounds in the near future.
“In short, without appropriate recognition, the Kennedy Center will be back where it was at the beginning—a financially insolvent facility and a decrepit, dilapidated, crumbling building, that is bleeding hundreds of millions of dollars in losses and that continues to race toward physical and financial ruin,” the brief continues. “The stakes are existential.”
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