Kennedy Center board votes to restore Trump’s name on building

The Kennedy Center’s board of trustees voted Thursday to add President Trump’s name to the facade of the performing arts center, more than two months after a judge ordered its removal, according to a House Democrat who sits on the center’s board. 

The board — which Mr. Trump filled with his allies — chose to add the phrase “Restored and Renovated By President Donald J. Trump” to the end of the center’s formal name, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio and her lawyers said in a statement. Beatty said the board also voted to close the center for two years.

The vote marks a second attempt to put the president’s name on the outside of the building, after U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled in May that a decision to rename the center after both Kennedy and Mr. Trump violated the federal law that created the organization. Cooper also blocked the center from moving forward with a plan to close until 2028 for renovations, though the cultural institution had said it was still considering a partial or full closure.

Cooper issued his order in response to a lawsuit from Beatty. On Thursday, the congresswoman called the latest move “a transparent effort to circumvent the Court’s ruling, and flies in the face of the statutes that Congress passed.”

“Today’s vote is more of the same, and a show of blatant disrespect to the courts,” two of Beatty’s attorneys, Norm Eisen and Nathaniel Zelinsky, wrote in the statement. “The court already ruled against the board when it bowed to Trump’s demands. Now, the defendants must answer for their actions—again—in court.”

White House spokesperson Liz Huston said: “Under President Trump’s bold leadership, the Kennedy Center is on its way to becoming the finest cultural institution anywhere in the world.”

CBS News has reached out to the Kennedy Center for comment.

This is a breaking story; it will be updated.