Live stream cameras captured the moment President Donald Trump’s name was pried by hand off of the Kennedy Center, and workers drove away after the last letter came down.

After a bonkers last-ditch attempt at a stay of alphabetical execution, the removal of Trump’s name was upheld in court and undertaken on Friday night into Saturday morning.

Late into the night, a tarp was added to the scaffolding to cover up the action. Several outlets set up live streaming coverage of the event, including independent journalist Jim Acosta, who likened it to the Berlin Wall coming down.

The cameras picked up some of the action behind the tarp, including the last letter being pried off. Workers can then be seen loading up the detritus, snarfing some pizza, and driving off with the tarp still up.

Sarah Rumpf recapped the saga thoroughly:

Shortly after his second inauguration, Trump appointed himself to the board for the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, and added several of his allies to the board as well, who then named him chair.

It was a divisive move, and the announcement last December that Trump’s name would be added to the Kennedy Center sparked even greater outrage from members of the Kennedy family and other critics of the president, especially when Trump’s name was added to the building’s façade a mere day later. The center’s website, social media, and other digital branding were also updated to say “The Trump Kennedy Center.”

Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH), a board member, objected to the renaming and filed a lawsuit in late December challenging the “illegal renaming,” arguing that “[b]ecause Congress named the center by statute, changing the Kennedy Center’s name requires an act of Congress.” She has been represented by Norm Eisen, along with the organization he co-founded, Democracy Defenders Action, and the Washington Litigation Group.

Last month, Judge Christopher Cooper, an Obama appointee of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, ruled in Beatty’s favor, ordering both the planned closure to be halted and for Trump’s name to be removed from the Kennedy Center.

On Friday, Trump filed a motion seeking a stay of the removal of his name, which Cooper denied, and Trump then appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, getting denied once again.

Workers spent hours Friday slowly putting up scaffolding in front of the Kennedy Center to reach the letters. Several commentators noted that when the letters were installed back in December, cherry pickers were used to do the job much quicker, leading to speculation the scaffolding was ordered to create additional delays and give Trump’s appeals more time.

AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

The midnight deadline in Judge Cooper’s order came and went without a single letter being taken down — there had been some delays due to inclement weather — and the workers diligently continued.

Trump filed another request for a 12-hour delay, citing the “thunderstorms in the District of Columbia that presented safety concerns for workers.”

The motion stated that the removal work was “presently ongoing” and expected to “conclude in the early hours of the morning of June 13, 2026,” making a request for “a short extension of time until noon on June 13, 2026.”

Trump’s motion added that the administration’s attorneys had reached out to Beatty’s legal team “when it became clear late in the evening of June 12 that progress on removal of the letters had been sufficiently hindered to threaten the midnight compliance deadline,” and received the following response:

Plaintiff’s position is that Defendants had two weeks to comply with the order, and only need an extension because of their inexcusable delay. Plaintiff also has concerns that this fits a patten of non-compliance on Defendants’ part. But under the circumstances, Plaintiff takes no position on a 12 hour extension. Plaintiff would strongly oppose any further extensions.

Hundreds of people had gathered throughout the afternoon and evening, bringing posters, American flags, and dogs. Cheers occasionally broke out whenever it looked like the workers were making progress.

Midnight came and went, and then another hour, the crowd dwindling somewhat as it got later. Then, around 1:30 am ET, workers began putting up a large tarp along the scaffolding that would block the view of the removal of the letters.

Watch above via Press Pool.

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