The White House says the board of the Kennedy Center has voted to rename the iconic Washington performing arts venue the Trump-Kennedy Center, a move that immediately set off controversy over process, politics and whether the change can legally take effect without action from Congress.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced the decision on social media, saying the board voted unanimously and crediting President Donald Trump with “saving the building” through major renovations and funding. The center, formally known as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, has stood for decades as a national cultural landmark and a living memorial to the late President John F. Kennedy.
White House credits Trump with renovations and funding
Speaking from the Oval Office on Thursday, President Donald Trump said he was “surprised” and “honoured” by the reported decision. The White House has framed the renaming as recognition of what it describes as a rescue effort for a building it says had fallen into disrepair.
Trump pointed to the venue’s physical condition, saying, “We saved it. It was really in bad shape, physically.” The administration has also highlighted roughly $257m in congressional funding that was secured to cover major renovations and other costs at the venue, which recently hosted high-profile events, including the Fifa World Cup draw.
How the board changed after Trump took office
The renaming announcement arrives after a sweeping reshaping of the Kennedy Center’s leadership. Shortly after taking office, President Donald Trump removed the center’s board members and replaced them with allies, who then voted to make him chairman of the board, according to reporting on the internal changes.
Trump adviser Richard Grenell became board president. Other prominent administration figures and allies were also placed on the board, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Second Lady Usha Vance.
The new board structure has intensified scrutiny over governance at an institution that, while hosting arts programming, is deeply intertwined with federal oversight and national symbolism.
Dispute erupts over whether the vote was truly “unanimous”
Despite the White House’s insistence that the board vote was unanimous, at least one board member has publicly disputed that characterization.
Rep. Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat who sits on the board, said the decision was not unanimous and claimed she was prevented from voicing opposition during the call. “This was not unanimous,” she said, adding that she was muted and not allowed to speak.
Jack Schlossberg, Kennedy’s grandson and a prominent Trump critic currently running for Congress, also said on X that microphones were muted and the vote was not unanimous. The allegations have fueled broader questions about transparency and whether dissenting voices were sidelined during a consequential decision affecting a federally linked institution.
Kennedy family and Democrats push back: “A living memorial”
Members of the Kennedy family and Democratic figures quickly condemned the reported renaming, arguing that the center’s identity is protected by law and by history.
Joe Kennedy III, a former member of the House and grandnephew of President Kennedy, wrote on X that the Kennedy Center “is a living memorial to a fallen president” and emphasized that it was named for Kennedy by federal law. He argued it “can no sooner be renamed than can someone rename the Lincoln Memorial.”
Maria Shriver, Kennedy’s niece, called the idea “beyond wild,” adding that placing Trump’s name ahead of Kennedy’s was “downright weird” and “obsessive in a weird way.”
Senior Democrats on Capitol Hill—ex-officio members of the board by law—also weighed in, stating that federal law established the center as a memorial to President Kennedy and restricts changes to that designation.
The legal question: can the name change happen without Congress?
At the heart of the dispute is a basic issue of authority. The Kennedy Center’s name stems from a 1964 law passed after work on a national performing arts center began in the 1950s and, following Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, Congress moved to make the institution a living memorial.
Some lawmakers and legal scholars have said that because the name is embedded in federal statute, Congress would need to pass legislation for any official renaming to take effect. That could set up a political and procedural fight, especially in a divided environment where cultural institutions often become symbolic battlegrounds.
Recent legislative activity underscores how naming changes are typically pursued through Congress. A proposal to rename the center’s opera venue the First Lady Melania Trump Opera House was introduced as part of a spending bill this summer, though it has not yet come up for a vote.
Why the Kennedy Center is uniquely sensitive in Washington
The Kennedy Center is not just another performance venue. It is a prominent landmark on the Potomac River, a major stage for American cultural life, and the annual home of the Kennedy Center Honors—an event that has long been associated with bipartisan celebration of artistic achievement.
Renaming it to the Trump-Kennedy Center would fuse the legacy of a slain Democratic president with a living Republican president, a pairing that supporters may frame as a tribute to renovations, while critics see it as political branding applied to a national memorial.
For now, the White House’s announcement has opened a new front in Washington’s culture-and-politics wars: whether the board’s vote is valid as described, whether it can be implemented without Congress, and how far the administration can go in reshaping an institution created to honor President John F. Kennedy and the arts he championed.