President Donald Trump’s top Kennedy Center goon has pleaded with a federal judge not to remove the 79-year-old’s name from the building.
Matt Floca—who was appointed as the historic performing arts center’s executive director after his predecessor, Ric Grenell, stepped down in March—filed a declaration on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia asserting that the president’s impact on the center’s funding is paramount.
“President Trump’s fundraising on behalf of the Center is exemplified by the tens of millions of dollars already raised,” Floca, 39, stated in the document. “Further, the President has committed to raise $150 million on its behalf from private donors over the next two years.”
“Should President Trump’s name be removed from the Center, that vital fundraising connection will be severed, causing irreparable harm and fundamentally destabilizing the Center’s development efforts, severely impairing its trust-funded artistic programming, and rendering the continuation of ongoing trust-funded operations financially nonviable,” he concluded.
Floca’s declaration is part of a lawsuit filed by Democratic Ohio congresswoman and ex officio board member Joyce Beatty in December 2025, which disputes the board’s decision to permanently add Trump’s name to the building.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the Kennedy Center for comment.
Reached for comment, White House spokesperson Liz Huston told the Daily Beast in a statement: “While the Democrats neglected the Trump-Kennedy Center for years, President Trump immediately stepped up to rescue and revitalize the institution. The newly named Trump-Kennedy Center proudly recognizes President Trump’s incredible contributions including strengthening its finances, leading major building upgrades, removing divisive woke programming, and transforming it into a welcoming destination that everyone can enjoy under his leadership.”
Beatty, who was appointed to the board by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2019, filed a motion in March arguing that Congress made it clear that the Kennedy Center remain named solely after former President John F. Kennedy.
“Renaming the Kennedy Center for President Trump — without any authorization from Congress — undermines the Center’s raison d’être, and frustrates its purpose as the only memorial to President Kennedy in Washington, D.C.," the motion said.
“Congress was particularly sensitive that no other names appear on the Center’s exterior walls, other than the signage designating the institution as a memorial for President Kennedy,” the motion continued.
Since Trump took over as chairman of the Center’s board and installed his own handpicked cronies alongside him, the near-octogenarian has urged more conservative-friendly programming, seeking its departure from so-called “woke culture.” However, the Kennedy Center has experienced plummeting ticket sales and widespread cancellations in the aftermath.
The president announced in March that the Kennedy Center would begin a two-year restoration project starting in July, which will result in “approximately 75 to 175 of the Center’s roughly 300 employees” losing their jobs, CNN reported at the time.
Since taking on his role overseeing the Kennedy Center, Floca, who holds a Bachelor of Science in construction management from Louisiana State University, has tried desperately to highlight areas of the building Trump has called “dilapidated,” “dangerous,” and “in very bad shape.”
