A federal appeals court has dealt President Donald Trump yet another legal defeat in his fight to have his name on the Kennedy Center, court records show.
A three-judge panel on Tuesday denied Trump’s request to pause — or “stay” — a lower court order while he appeals it.
That order, issued in May, declared his name on the building illegal and gave him two weeks to take it down. He did.
“We now deny Appellants’ motion for a stay pending appeal because they have failed to show how they will be irreparably injured absent a stay,” the D.C. Circuit wrote.
The fight started in December 2025, after Trump packed the Kennedy Center’s board with his own appointees, named himself chairman, and had them vote to rename the building “The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts,” according to ABC News.
Trump was asked about the vote at the White House that same day.
“We’re saving the building. We saved the building,” he told reporters. “The building was in such bad shape, physically, financially, in every other way.”
Congress named the center for President John F. Kennedy by federal law in 1964 — and only an act of Congress can change it.
“The Kennedy Center is a living memorial to a fallen president and named for President Kennedy by federal law,” former Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-MA), a grandnephew of the late president, wrote on X. “It can no sooner be renamed than can someone rename the Lincoln Memorial.”
Ticket sales dropped by 50% in the week after Trump announced his takeover, the Washington Post reported — even as he claimed record donations.
Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH), an ex-officio board member who said she was muted during the renaming vote and blocked from voicing her opposition, sued, according to court records.
Court records show Trump lost at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in May. He lost an emergency stay request on June 12 — the same day he was forced to comply and remove his name from the building. Now he has lost again.
Because the Trump team couldn’t show they’d be hurt without the stay, the court said it didn’t even need to consider whether they have a chance of winning the underlying appeal.
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