The public was turned away from the Kennedy Center on Wednesday as construction workers erected fencing throughout the performing arts center plaza, one day after Donald Trump’s hand-picked board voted to shut it down.
The black fencing and other barriers, such as neon cones across the driveway, were still being positioned as the Daily Beast arrived on the scene before noon.
A security guard would not answer questions about when they started putting up the fencing or discuss the Kennedy Center at all, but a flurry of activity was underway.
Crews moved metal barriers and orange plastic ones quickly by hand and with a forklift as they worked to block access to the performing arts facility’s entrances.
Opponents of the Kennedy Center’s closure filed a motion for an emergency hearing in federal court on Wednesday. A preliminary injunction preventing the board from fully closing the center remains in place despite Trump’s vow that it would close “immediately.”
The Daily Beast asked the White House and Kennedy Center for more information.
Laura Bligh, who worked at the Center in the 1980s and 1990s, stood outside protesting as the fencing went up. She was carrying signs that read “Shame on the Trump Board—you have destroyed something precious” and “there is an injunction (remember?).
“Trump’s hand-picked board is not interested in the performing arts. All they’re interested in is doing what Trump tells them to do, and he also is not interested in the performing arts,” Bligh said.
She has been out protesting for several weeks and said she wants the Kennedy Center back.
“I want Trump’s connection with it to be completely severed. I want the patrons to come back and embrace this wonderful, joyous performing arts center,” she said.
The fencing went up one day after Trump threw a tantrum when District Judge Christopher Cooper blocked the president from adding his name to the Kennedy Center for a second time. Cooper had previously ruled that changing the name to the Trump Kennedy Center was unlawful, and the president’s name could not be added without an act of Congress.
Trump did not take kindly to the setback, attacking the judge and threatening to not even carry out renovations unless his name was added.
“The closing will take place immediately, however, the Renovation and Reconstruction, which is a very large and complex job, cannot begin until such time as the D.C. Circuit rules on the Board’s approved name,” Trump posted Tuesday on Truth Social.
“If the ruling is a negative one, which it should not be, and is not overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Reconstruction and the Renovation of The Kennedy Center will not take place,” he added.
Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty, an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center board, has been leading the fight against Trump’s takeover of the facility and his effort to get his name on the center.
Her team filed a motion for an emergency hearing on Wednesday about the Kennedy Center’s closure. A staff member from the law firm representing Beatty was denied access to the center on Wednesday, despite arriving during hours it was listed as open to the public.
“This Court’s order enjoined the Board from effectuating its shutdown resolutions ‘until the Board approves any closure consistent with the Court’s Memorandum Opinion, and the Court issues a further Order dissolving or modifying this preliminary injunction,’” the filing read. “Were there any doubt, this Court made clear at yesterday’s hearing that if Defendants intended to close the Center, they could and must move to lift the preliminary injunction.”
It noted the board voted to close the center, but the court “has not dissolved or modified its order. It seems Defendants may be violating the ‘clear and unambiguous order of the Court.’”
Beatty went on MS NOW Tuesday night to share details about her epic clash with Trump during the board meeting earlier in the day.
“It was the most unprofessional thing that I’ve ever witnessed or been a part of,” the Democratic congresswoman told the panel. “He went into name-calling—everything from trying to say that I was an obstructionist, I was dumb. He said, ‘I think you’re incompetent.’ And I said, ‘I know you’re incompetent.’”
The showdown did not stop there, according to Beatty, who said she was not going to let him call her awful things.
“He said he was going to hold me responsible if something fell out of the ceiling and killed someone. And I told him, I said, ‘You’re already killing people. We’re at war.’”
Beatty also shared how the president bragged about being great at developing and accused her of having “never done anything,” but she fired back that Trump had “more bankruptcies than anybody in the room.”
