Donald Trump has been consistently trying and failing to rebrand the world-renowned Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts into a gold-plated, Trump-branded, tacky monstrosity, and he's met nothing but trouble and pushback at every turn.
So it seems they're choosing the nuclear route now.
In a downright apocalyptic new court filing, the Trump-installed board that now oversees the Kennedy Center made it crystal clear that if the building doesn't get Donald Trump's name on it, giving the President the "prominent recognition" he believes he deserves, then the whole damn building will be torn down to the ground in the end.
Lawyers with the Trump-era Justice Department made the nuclear threat in a court filing before US District Judge Christopher Cooper on Monday. The filing was in direct opposition to an emergency motion filed by OH Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty, who has only managed to remain on the board by virtue of her position in Congress, in which she sued to stop the renaming of the center.
Earlier this month, the Kennedy Center board voted in favor of carving "Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump" into the front of the infamous building as well as renaming the Kennedy Center grounds to "President Donald J. Trump Plaza."
According to the DOJ filing, the board asserts that the Kennedy Center "will deteriorate further into an unsafe, decrepit structure that will be required to be taken down," unless their renaming demands are met.
To add insult to injury, they floated the idea of a "large outdoor amphitheater overlooking the Potomac River that has been proposed, by some, for many years," as a replacement for the performing arts venue if/when it is destroyed.
"Such a replacement will fail to adequately honor President John F. Kennedy, but would be simpler and more economical to build, operate, and maintain," the filing reads.
The nuclear argument rests on their claim that without blatant, flashy, inescapable, highly conspicuous recognition for Donald J. Trump plastered all over every inch of the Kennedy Center, no one will be willing to donate any money to repair the venue.
Without "prominent recognition" of Donald Trump's devoted efforts, the DOJ argues, "the donors will not contribute, and the Center will continue to be in a financial and structural death spiral."
They go on to threaten that any order blocking the board from doing what they want "will cause donors to flee, financial contributions to dry up, and structural rehabilitation to stop."
Extortion. This is extortion. The federal government, the United States Department of Justice, has resorted to literal, in-your-face, flagrant extortion all because Donald Trump wants his name on a building really, really bad.
Trump completely took over and rehauled the Kennedy Center board in February 2025, shortly after his return to the White House, unceremoniously removing anyone appointed by a Democrat and replacing them with his own trusted loyalists, who immediately installed Trump himself at the helm as chairman.
Last December, the board formally renamed the performing arts venue after Donald Trump.
The move was immediately met with intense pushback, with Judge Cooper ruling in May: "Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it." He ordered that Trump's name be stripped from the building's facade.
The federal government argued in its filing on behalf of the Trump-led board that the Kennedy Center building is "structurally unsound, fundamentally unsafe, and embarrassing to the Nation's Capital." They further argued that Rep. Beatty's lawsuit "almost guarantees the continued decline and eventual demise of the Kennedy Center, probably leading to the construction of a new, but very different kind, of venue."
In her emergency motion last week, Beatty called the board's vote a "new and breathtaking act of defiance."
"The Court should allow the Board and President Trump to bring the Center back to a level of greatness far higher than it has ever had before."
As it stands, the board has agreed not to make any moves until September 8th.
