For weeks, a tarp obscuring the facade of the John F. Kennedy Center has baffled observers, prompting speculation about the Washington, D.C., arts complex following the court-ordered removal of the president’s name. But recent court filings have raised a new mystery beyond the canvas.
Department of Justice lawyers representing the Kennedy Center yesterday urged a federal appeals court to restore Donald Trump’s name to the institution, arguing that taking it down jeopardizes “hundreds of millions” of dollars in gifts and pledges tied to an entity, unheard-of until this month, called the Trump Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Foundation. Note the last word.
Bylaws for the foundation (which DOJ lawyers first mentioned in a June 12 filing in the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit) require that gifts be “returned, refunded, or terminated” if the president’s name is removed from the building, its branding, or other affiliated materials, the Kennedy Center wrote in a filing yesterday. Seeking an emergency stay to restore the president’s name to the building, the center argued that donors had pledged generous sums because Trump’s name was attached to the institution.
The Kennedy Center was reporting fundraising hauls totaling more than $100 million under Trump as recently as late last year. But public business records that I reviewed this week show that the Trump Kennedy Center Foundation did not exist until this spring, raising questions over why funds raised or pledged before that date would need to be returned or canceled.
On March 18, the records (filed with the District’s Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection) show, the center amended the name of an existing nonprofit that had been called the Kennedy Center Foundation, which past Kennedy Center leaders had established as an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 2024, before Trump’s reelection. The records, however, do not include any details about the renamed foundation’s governance, and who is in charge of it remains unclear. The records and court filings do not identify the donors whose gifts are allegedly at risk or specify how much money has actually been pledged or received through the foundation. The document formalizing the name change was signed by the center’s general counsel, Elliot Berke.
Alongside the foundation, there is now also a Trump Kennedy Center Fund. The center’s board voted on June 12 to acknowledge Trump’s contributions to the center in the form of a fund, but how it interacts with the foundation is unclear, other than the fact that the fund appears to be a separate entity. When asked for comment today, the Kennedy Center referred me to a statement from June 13: “The Trump Kennedy Center Fund is intended to recognize President Donald J. Trump’s significant contributions and dedication to America’s premier cultural center, while furthering our founding mission like never before,” the spokeswoman Roma Daravi said.
Unpacking the Kennedy Center’s legal effort to overturn a federal judge’s ruling—that the institution, as a congressionally designated living memorial to Kennedy, cannot be renamed—is thorny enough on its own. But the recent court filings add another layer of intrigue in introducing an unexpected new player as the basis for emergency intervention from a federal appeals court while leaving fundamental questions unanswered.
[Read: The Kennedy Center, minus Trump]
In a separate filing in U.S. District Court yesterday, responding to the allegations from Representative Joyce Beatty that kicked off the legal fight in December, the Kennedy Center offered some of its clearest public admissions of the institution’s vulnerabilities since Trump’s takeover last year. Notably, the Kennedy Center confirmed a Washington Post report that nearly half of the center’s tickets were going unsold by October, months after Trump’s February 2025 takeover. The Kennedy Center relies on a mix of revenue from ticket sales, donations, government funding, and other sources.
In a filing on June 19, Beatty’s team requested information about the fund and foundation, alleging that the center’s assertion about a potential fundraising collapse could raise questions about its ongoing compliance with the ruling removing Trump’s name.
The question of what will happen to funds raised by the Kennedy Center is of particularly grave importance right now as the complex faces an uncertain future. U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper temporarily halted a plan for the Kennedy Center to shut down this summer for renovations, saying that its board did not properly consider the necessity of such a drastic closure. Next month, trustees will revisit the matter and vote on a path forward for the center’s renovation plans, which may still include a complete closure.
The center’s only remaining flagship tenant, the National Symphony Orchestra, will be watching closely. The orchestra has not announced its next season because the center has been slow to approve the booking of other venues. A delay could depress subscriptions to the upcoming season and threaten revenue. Two people with close knowledge of the NSO’s operations, who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss these matters publicly, told me last week that there has been no movement on discussions between the Kennedy Center and the orchestra in some time. One of those people said that the process has been held up by the Kennedy Center not approving the orchestra’s budget, and by ambiguity over whether the center will be closed next season. “That is the hardest thing to really figure out,” the person said—whether the orchestra will even need to find outside venues or whether it can use the center’s Concert Hall.
For remaining staff at the center, multiple lawsuits, sweeping layoffs, and union disputes have left them in limbo. Employees told me that they have received little information about the path forward beyond an all-staff email sent last Thursday. “At this time, we are making no immediate staffing changes related to building closures,” Executive Director Matt Floca wrote in the email.
He was more forthcoming in court. In a filing earlier this month, Floca told Cooper that the Kennedy Center intends to maintain an “operational model” past July 5 (Trump’s original closure date) that would keep portions of the building open for educational and community programming, and long-term programming and staffing adjustments would be deferred until the board meets next month.
If there was ever a sign of just how scrambled the institution’s operations have become amid the legal fights, it arrived in another all-staff email yesterday with a salutation that was either a simple oversight or a reflection of the greater confusion: “Good afternoon, Trump Kennedy Center Staff.” Pretty soon, what the building is called may not be the Kennedy Center’s biggest problem.
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