WASHINGTON (AP) — The Kennedy Center on Friday quickly added Donald Trump’s name to the performing arts center Congress designated as a living memorial to John F. Kennedy, a day after the center’s board of trustees voted to make the change.
Blue tarps were hung in front of the building to obscure workers on scaffolding as they executed the transformation. Hours later it had a new name: The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.
Blue tarps hang from columns covering part of the facade at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a day after its board announced it would rename the institution The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, in Washington, D.C., Dec. 19, 2025. Photo by Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
The board of trustees, handpicked by Trump, voted unanimously Thursday to add his name to what was enshrined as a living memorial to the Democratic president. Trump, a Republican, also is the board’s chairman.
Critics of the vote, including Democratic members of Congress who are ex-officio board members, as well as some historians, insist that only Congress can change the name.
Workers install lettering reading “Donald” on the facade of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, in Washington, D.C., Dec. 19, 2025. Photo by Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
“The Kennedy Center was named by law. To change the name would require a revision of that 1964 law,” Ray Smock, a former House historian, said in an email. “The Kennedy Center board is not a lawmaking entity. Congress makes laws.”
A man holds a sign as President Donald Trump’s name is added at the facade of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, in Washington, D.C., Dec. 19, 2025. Photo by Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Congress named the performing arts center as a living memorial to Kennedy in 1964, the year after he was assassinated. The law explicitly prohibits the board of trustees from making the center into a memorial to anyone else, and from putting another person’s name on the building’s exterior.
A worker stands on a lift, under President Donald Trump’s name after it was added to the facade of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, in Washington, D.C., Dec. 19, 2025. Photo by Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Some Kennedy family members oppose the renaming.
The Kennedy Center is the latest building in Washington to have Trump’s name added to it. The U.S. Institute of Peace was recently renamed after him.
The Kennedy Center did not respond to an emailed request for comment Friday.
AP National Writer Hillel Italie in New York contributed to this report.
