CNN commentator Scott Jennings waved off a ruling from a judge who said the renaming of the Kennedy Center for President Donald Trump violated federal law.

In the wee hours of Saturday morning, workers began removing Trump’s name from the famous venue in Washington, D.C.

The official name of the venue, which is codified in federal law, is the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. It was created to serve as a “living memorial” to the 35th president. However, in December, the center’s board, packed mainly with Trump loyalists, voted to rename the building The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.

But on May 29, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled in favor of Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH), a member of the Kennedy Center’s board, who sued over the addition of Trump’s name and the president’s two-year closure of the venue.

Not surprisingly, liberals hailed the ruling, and some gathered outside the building as crews erected scaffolding to take Trump’s name off the facade.

On Friday’s CNN NewsNight, host Abby Phillip noted the disconnect between what Trump had campaigned on – lowering costs – and his actions in office, including renaming things for himself.

“I think it is emblematic of one of the big problems with this Trump second term,” she said. “He is expending a huge amount of energy self-aggrandizing in the office. He was elected to lower prices, make people’s lives better. Instead, he’s calling into meetings, according to CNN’s reporting that according to a source, it was like an episode of Veep. He’s calling into meetings at the Kennedy Center to talk to them about this issue, to attack the judge’s wife, who was a former attorney for Joe Biden.”

Jennings tried to spin the matter in Trump’s favor:

JENNINGS: Well, are we upset that the president of the United States took an interest in the Kennedy Center, took an interest in a building that needs–

PHILLIP: A lot of people are upset about that–

JENNINGS: Why? Why would they be upset about it? Now, I’ll answer my own question. Because they’ve never been able to stand the fact that Donald Trump won the White House the first time, and especially the second–

PHILLIP: I have an alternative explanation. How about Congress established the Kennedy Center as a memorial for John F. Kennedy and that it is illegal for him to slap his name on it? That is why people are upset about it.

JENNINGS: Look, here’s the deal. He took an interest in this–

PHILLIP: What about the law, Scott?

JENNINGS: Well, what about it? He took an interest in it. Who cares?

[CROSSTALK]

JENNINGS: You can’t get the government on the phone after three o’clock on a Friday, yet we can build scaffolding to scrape a name off the side of a building?

PHILLIP They built scaffolding to put a name on the side of a building.

JENNINGS: And what is it that Democrats do for fun on a Friday night? These haters stand out on the street, screeching about a name? Unbelievable.

Watch above via CNN.

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