A Republican senator thwarted a bipartisan effort to prevent the demolition of presidential memorials—including the Kennedy Center—without Congress’ approval.
Utah Sen. Mike Lee was the lone vote against the Protecting Presidential Memorials Act, introduced by Oregon Democrat Jeff Merkley and Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski.
Merkley and Murkowski lead the Senate subcommittee that allocates federal funding to the National Park Service, the Department of the Interior, the Smithsonian, and the Kennedy Center.
The duo tried to pass the bill by unanimous consent, a procedure that fast-tracks votes by requiring agreement from all senators present.
Lee, the lone objector who has supported Trump since 2020, including his bid to overturn the election, blocked the bill. His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
After failing to secure unanimous consent and expedite the bill, Merkley and Maine Rep. Chellie Pingree officially unveiled the legislation in both the House and the Senate on Tuesday morning.
The Kennedy Center, which was established by Congress in 1964 as a “living memorial” to assassinated President John F. Kennedy, has been the center of months-long legal drama.
Shortly after returning to office in February 2025, Trump purged the nonprofit’s board and appointed a slate of loyalists, who then unanimously elected him chair.
The president also rebranded the venue as the “Trump-Kennedy Center” and attached his name to the front of the building last December, before it was removed after a court ruling in May.
In August, Trump administration lawyers floated the idea of demolishing the venue, saying that the current building was “structurally unsound, fundamentally unsafe, and embarrassing to the Nation’s Capital.”
That month, the board also approved an inscription on the building recognizing Trump without renaming the institution. Trustees also proposed renaming the grounds surrounding the center the “President Donald J. Trump Plaza.” After a judge blocked the plan, the Trump-appointed Kennedy Center board voted to close the venue.
Earlier this month, AFP/Getty Images photographer Brendan Smialowski snapped a photograph of Trump reviewing a poster through the windows of Air Force One. It appeared to read “Kennedy Center” and “DEMOLISHED” in red capital letters, above an aerial view of a building.
In a statement to the Daily Beast, White House spokeswoman Liz Huston said, “For years, Democrats let the Kennedy Center rot, allowing water damage and crumbling infrastructure to turn a national treasure into a building in decay.”
Without Trump’s intervention, she added, the building “will inevitably continue to decline.
The president also said, in a post on Truth Social this month, that renovations of the Kennedy Center “cannot begin” until a federal appeals court rules on the inscription dispute.
