Kennedy Center board votes to rename it ‘Trump Kennedy Center’
By Betsy Klein, CNN
(CNN) — The board of trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts voted Thursday to rename the facility after both the former president and President Donald Trump.
“The Kennedy Center Board of Trustees voted unanimously today to name the institution The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts,” center spokeswoman Roma Daravi said in a statement.
“The unanimous vote recognizes that the current Chairman saved the institution from financial ruin and physical destruction. The new Trump Kennedy Center reflects the unequivocal bipartisan support for America’s cultural center for generations to come,” she added.
The vote took place during a board meeting, according to a source familiar with the matter, during which Trump called in.
The president, who was elected chair by a newly constituted board in February, has frequently joked about calling the performing arts center the “Trump Kennedy Center,” and it appears his handpicked board has approved his wishes.
At an Oval Office event Thursday afternoon, the president said he was honored and surprised by the decision.
“I was honored by this. The board is a very distinguished board, most distinguished people in the country. And I was surprised by it,” Trump said. “This was brought up by one of the very distinguished board members, and they voted on it, and there’s a lot of board members, and they voted unanimously.”
Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty, an ex-officio member of the board, said the vote was “not unanimous.”
“I was on that call and 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. Each time I tried to speak, I was muted,” she said in a video posted to X.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt congratulated the president in a post on social media, writing, “The building will no doubt attain new levels of success and grandeur.”
Questions remain around the legality of the board’s move.
Congress renamed the arts center after former President John F. Kennedy in legislation passed after his 1963 assassination, and federal law requires that the board “assure that after December 2, 1983, 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.”
The push marks the latest effort to leave Trump’s mark on the Kennedy Center.
Days after returning to office, Trump announced an aggressive plan to gut the existing board of trustees and oust its chairman, the billionaire philanthropist David Rubenstein. Since then, he’s led an effort to reshape the institution to his taste: reshaping its leadership, securing multimillion-dollar congressional funding for renovations, and reimagining its programming.
He installed a who’s who of loyalists — including new president Richard Grenell, his ambassador to Germany during his first term, who’s been reevaluating programming and targeting it “for the masses.” Grenell has cut the existing staff, hired political allies and mandated a “break-even policy” for every performance and facility rental.
Trump has also touted restoration of the exterior marble, the interior chairs and “fully” renovated stages, which he says will be complete within a year.
The changes extend to what’s onstage too, as the president has sought to enact a “Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture,” saying the “Trump Kennedy Center” is “not going to be woke.”
Trump’s impact on the institution was evident earlier this month at the 2025 Kennedy Center Honors. The president has said he was “98%” involved” in picking the awardees, who ranged from Sylvester Stallone to the rock band KISS and Gloria Gaynor, among others.
Trump on Thursday said that under his administration the center has seen “record-setting numbers” in donors and previewed plans to get Congress to invest more money in the center.
“We’re saving the building. We saved the building. The building was in such bad shape, both physically, financially and every other way. And now it’s very solid, very strong,” he said.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
CNN’s Betul Tuncer contributed to this report.
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