A federal judge has asked the Kennedy Center to explain why a tarp has covered its facade for more than two months.
The center then issued a response about why the performing arts center needed such a large blue and white tarp.
“Water testing and structural repairs to the roof overhang of the Center’s front portico require the use of a scaffolding system, including a protective covering—a tarp—around that scaffolding,” Department of Justice attorneys told the court on the center’s behalf.
Ohio Rep. Joyce Beatty, who has sued over proposed changes to the Kennedy Center, isn’t buying it.
She says the Trump-appointed board’s real motive is to “hide their embarrassment.”
Beatty alleges that the tarp is covering up the fact that President John F. Kennedy’s name has been restored to the building.
Her lawyers noted that no other part of the building is covered, only the facade, where the building’s name is shown.
“Defendants tellingly have not done so for months, leaving only the Center’s iconic name obscured—a strong indication that this structure has nothing to do with the roof and is, instead, meant to defy a return to the status quo,” they wrote.
The dispute is the latest chapter in Trump’s obsession with inserting himself in the image of the Kennedy Center.
In the first weeks of his second presidency, Trump fired half of the Kennedy Center’s board, replacing them with his own loyalists, and named himself chairman.
In December 2025, that new board voted unanimously to put Trump’s name on the Kennedy Center. His name appeared on the building’s exterior the next day.
Then in May, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled that the renaming was unlawful, finding that only Congress has the authority to change the center’s name. He ordered Trump’s name and other related branding be removed from the facade and blocked a planned two-year shutdown of the institution, which he called “ill-informed” and “seemingly preordained.”
Last week, the board, which includes Fox News hosts Laura Ingraham and Maria Bartiromo, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, Special Envoy Paolo Zampolli and country crooner Lee Greenwood, tried to bypass the ruling by adding an inscription to the center’s facade that would read, underneath its name, “Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump,” while naming the center’s grounds the “President Donald J. Trump Plaza.”
Beatty said the board had acted in “naked defiance” of the judge’s prior decision in the case.
“This latest development is a transparent effort to circumvent the Court’s ruling, and flies in the face of the statutes that Congress passed,” Beatty said in a statement. “I will continue to fight for this treasured national monument.”
