The Kennedy Center claims its rush to shut down one day after Donald Trump declared it would close “immediately” has nothing to do with his hand-picked board’s vote on Tuesday to close the iconic building.
A new court filing paints a strikingly different picture from what the board initially claimed: shuttering the arts center for two years to undertake renovations.
Instead, the administration now says it is “temporarily” closing the center for “seven days, unless extended” due to “acute risks to public safety resulting from continued structural deterioration at the Center.
“No part of the Court’s preliminary injunction order forbids a temporary closure like this one,” the board said in a court filing on Thursday morning.
The president’s board is stacked with Trump allies, including White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, country crooner Lee Greenwood, special envoy Paolo Zampolli, Fox host Laura Ingraham and former Fox presenter Maria Bartiromo.
They voted on Tuesday to close the living memorial to President John F. Kennedy for renovations. Less than 24 hours later, construction workers quickly put up metal barriers around the building, shutting the public out.
Rep. Joyce Beatty, who has been leading the charge against the president’s takeover, immediately filed for an emergency hearing.
But the Justice Department on Thursday said the Trump-picked board had every right to temporarily shut down the Center to assess its structural problems. It cited deterioration in overhead panels around the building, which were “an active falling hazard,” as well as ceiling plaster that fell after major storms in D.C. earlier this month.
“There is no emergency caused by Defendants’ temporary closure of the Center; the only emergency is the risk to the public and the Center’s employees and artists if it remained fully open without further safety assessment,” the filing says.
But it comes as Trump has been ranting that unless his name goes back up on the building, renovations will not take place, despite Congress having already allocated $257 million for repairs.
He was also spotted through the window of Air Force One looking at an image that appeared to show Kennedy Center “DEMOLIS...”
While Beatty’s legal team has scrambled to block the board’s actions, a group of preservation organizations is also pushing to take the Center’s leadership out of Trump’s hands altogether.
The D.C. Preservation League, National Trust for Historic Preservation, Society of Architectural Historians, The Cultural Landscape Foundation, and four others threatened to call for an independent monitor on Thursday.
The group had previously filed a separate lawsuit earlier this year in response to Trump’s takeover, but is now preparing to take new legal action in light of Trump’s latest threats.
The group’s lawyer, Greg Werkheiser, said the court can appoint an independent monitor to ensure duties are carried out if the board falls down on the job.
“The objective here isn’t to have a federal judge run a performing arts center; it is to make sure that there is still a Kennedy Center worth governing when this litigation is over,” Werkheiser said.
Werkheiser rejected the board’s latest claim that the Center was only being temporarily closed for seven days.
“Every time the government goes into court, they appear to say one thing and then if they get caught with their hand in the cookie jar, they quickly affirm something else.”
While the group has threatened action, it has not filed in court.
Werkheiser argued the first step was to publicly call on the Kennedy Center board one last time to fulfill its legal obligations not to harm the building and to raise funds. If that does not happen, the group vowed to follow up in court.
The developments are the latest in the unfolding drama at the Kennedy Center, which Trump took over in February 2025, installing MAGA acolyte Ric Grenell to oversee the institution. But Grenell was ousted after a tumultuous term, with Trump’s efforts to remake the venue sparking a sustained backlash from artists, donors, and performers.
Several prominent artists canceled appearances, while the Washington National Opera announced it would depart the institution altogether, citing the upheaval surrounding the new leadership.
