A federal judge who blocked President Donald Trump’s Kennedy Center takeover has given officials just days to update the court with their plans to keep the storied arts venue open instead of closing for two years of renovations.
Judge Christopher Cooper ruled last month that the president and his board of mostly hand-picked loyalists could not add Trump’s name to the center—which was created as a memorial to the late President John F. Kennedy—without congressional approval.
The Kennedy Center was given 14 days to remove all references to the “Trump Kennedy Center,” and the president’s name was scraped off the side of the building Saturday, a day before his 80th birthday.
Cooper also ruled the board had accepted a directive from Trump to shutter the building based on an “insufficient, one-sided presentation of information,” and had failed to fully consider both its own statutory obligations and the negative consequences of a prolonged closure.
On Tuesday, Cooper demanded a status update on his ruling.
His order gave the administration just three days to provide any “plans for public access and ongoing programming, activities, and operations after July 5,” the date the center was originally supposed to close.
In his original opinion, Cooper—a Barack Obama appointee—wrote that the board had been “derelict” in voting to close the Kennedy Center, with the trustees lacking the information needed to reach a “considered, independent decision.”
“The record and timing of relevant events strongly suggest that the Board lacked any meaningful say in this matter because the closure decision was foreordained,” Cooper wrote, pointing to discrepancies that emerged during executive director Matt Floca’s testimony.
During a board meeting this month, the trustees voted to appeal Cooper’s order, but didn’t vote on whether to reauthorize the center’s closing, The New York Times reported.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the Kennedy Center for comment.
In February 2025, Trump purged the Kennedy Center’s bipartisan board of trustees—which, by law, is composed of both presidential appointees and congressionally mandated ex officio members from both parties—and made himself chairman.
He also installed allies including White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Fox News hosts Laura Ingraham and Maria Bartiromo.
The new board then voted to change its own by-laws so that the Democrats and other ex officio members—including Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, who sued to block the board’s actions—couldn’t vote.
In her suit, Beatty argued the Kennedy Center closure was meant to hide the reality of Trump’s disastrous takeover.
The beleaguered arts venue has been plagued by artist cancellations, boycotts, protests, and an embarrassing drop in ticket sales, with those artists who have remained describing the agony of performing for empty seats.
In March, the board voted to close the center for renovations, though officials refused to say exactly what work needed to be done, which experts had been consulted, and whether the construction bids would be made public, NPR reported at the time.
Legal filings revealed that over the past several years, the compound suffered from water leaks, problems with the fire alarm system, roof overhang issues, outdated equipment, and discoloration on the building’s exterior, according to Cooper’s ruling.
But it wasn’t clear if any of that work had already been completed, or why the building needed to be closed in the meantime, the judge wrote.
The center’s 2022 Comprehensive Building Plan, for example, prioritized renovation projects “in terms of need” and were “scheduled in such a way as to keep the facility operating to the maximum extent, with efforts phased over the multi-year period.”
In fact, until February of this year, the board was under the impression that the renovation would be done in phases, Cooper noted.
Former acting director Ric Grenell had also touted the center as one of the “premier spots” for this summer’s 250th anniversary celebration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, which was “quite a concerning idea if the Center is as dangerous as the Defendants now represent,” the judge added.
After the ruling was issued, Trump raged against Cooper’s decision in a rambling Truth Social post.
“Based on the fact that the Radical Left Democrats care more about opposing your favorite President, ME, than saving a dying Performing Arts Center… we are going to be working with Congress to transfer this failing Institution back to them,” Trump wrote.
