Kennedy Center Board Votes to Close Venue After Judge Blocks Trump Rebranding
The Trump-appointed board of the Kennedy Center voted on Tuesday to immediately close the performing arts center due to financial issues after a judge blocked the board’s proposal to rename the building after President Trump.
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In a meeting held minutes after the judge’s ruling, the board of trustees voted to close the center, citing the institution’s dire financial straits and structural problems which they say make continued operation unsafe, the Associated Press reported.
Judge Christopher Cooper on Tuesday upheld his May ruling that the board cannot rename the center in honor of Trump without congressional approval.
“Simply put, Defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’s blessing,” Cooper wrote.
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In response to Cooper’s original ruling, the board had proposed several inscription options to honor Trump, efforts Cooper dismissed as “word games” in his Tuesday order. The board said in their proposal that Trump would be unlikely to appropriate the funds for the needed reservations “without such appropriate recognition.”
Since February, the board has voted three times to close the center for renovations for a two-year period. The venue was scheduled to close on July 5, but remained open after attorneys for the board said legal efforts by ex-officio board member Representative Joyce Beatty (D., Ohio) prevented its closure. Beatty has argued the board did not do its due diligence before deciding to close the venue, and had not fully investigatedwhether it would be possible to keep parts of the center open during renovations.
The board previously pointed to a partial ceiling collapse in the Grand Foyer as the reasoning for the center’s immediate closure.
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