A federal judge has ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to explain why it put up a tarp and scaffolding on the façade of the Kennedy Center and why it is still up after the president’s name was removed pursuant to a previous order from the court.

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. The new Trump-controlled board voted to change the center’s name to add the president’s name. The center’s website, social media, and other digital branding were updated to say “The Trump Kennedy Center” and his name was added to the building’s façade.

Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH) is a Kennedy Center board member and objected to the renaming. She 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 a legal team led 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 Trump’s name to be removed from the Kennedy Center by Friday, June 12. After Trump’s last-minute appeals failed, workers spent hours slowly putting up scaffolding in front of the Kennedy Center to reach the letters, and then began hanging up large tarps that concealed their work removing the letters in Trump’s name and blocked the view of the Kennedy Center façade afterwards.

On Monday, Beatty filed a motion seeking to remove the tarp from the front of the Kennedy Center and blasting the Trump administration for its “petty act of defiance” of previous court orders.

The judge agreed with Beatty that an explanation was due regarding the tarp and scaffolding, issuing an order on Wednesday demanding the Trump administration include this information in the joint status report all parties were required to file next month, as reported by Politico senior legal affairs reporter Josh Gerstein.

The order as it was entered in the case docket reads as follows:

Finally, the parties are hereby ordered to file a joint status report within seven days of the mid-July Kennedy Center Board of Trustees meeting alluded to in the [60] report, or by July 31, whichever is earlier. The joint status report shall apprise the Court of any pertinent factual developments as to plans for future construction and operations at the Kennedy Center. The report shall also indicate the purpose for and status of the tarp and scaffolding that Defendants have erected on the front portico of the Center, to the extent they remain at that time. SO ORDERED. Signed by Judge
Christopher R. Cooper on 6/24/2026.

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