President Donald Trump has lost his latest appeal to get his name back on the Kennedy Center over a month after being ordered to remove it.
A three-judge federal court panel deemed that Trump’s name must stay off the Kennedy Center building, as was originally ordered at the end of May. Trump’s appeal to stay cited concerns that the name removal would cause the center to be “irreparably injured” by the change.
“Since that removal has already occurred … a stay would not avert those harms (even assuming they would qualify as irreparable),” the panel explained.
Trump’s team added that fundraising efforts would be hampered and that restoring the center to its original name would mean they would need to return fundraised donations “‘raised or committed’ to it if the name ‘Trump’ is not returned to the Kennedy Center’s façade.”
“Appellants never raised that factual contention in district court, and they have given no explanation for failing to do so,” the judges said. “Such a post hoc argument cannot demonstrate an abuse of discretion by the district court.”
Back on June 12, the D.C. appeals court rejected the Kennedy Center Board’s attempt to halt the court-ordered removal of Trump’s name the first time. The judges denied that request for an immediate administrative stay that would have put on hold a district judge’s order that Trump’s name be removed from all references to the name of the Kennedy Center by the end of that day. Judge Christopher Cooper gave the Washington, D.C., performing arts center two weeks to remove “Trump” from official messaging.
“The Kennedy Center’s organic statute makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board’s unilateral say-so,” Cooper wrote at the time. “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.”
Trump initally added his name to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts building in December after taking over the cultural center in February 2025. The order to remove it came after a lawsuit filed by Rep. Joyce Beatty – a former member of the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees.
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