WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has warned that the Kennedy Center could ultimately be razed if efforts to place President Trump’s name on the building’s front entrance and carry out major renovations are stopped.
In a legal filing submitted late Monday, administration attorneys argued that without the president’s backing, the landmark performing arts venue would have to be demolished and rebuilt from the ground up.
They also claimed that donors could walk away if Trump is not formally recognized with his name displayed at the entrance, potentially pushing the Kennedy Center into what they described as a “financial and structural death spiral.”
“The Kennedy Center is in terrible trouble,” the brief states.
“The crisis is so acute that, without the Trump Administration, its people, and President Trump, the Center cannot survive, either structurally or financially.”
The filing, led by Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate, pointed to Trump’s role in supporting needed construction work and financial aid, including $258 million approved by Congress and additional millions from new donors.
“Without those efforts, the Center will deteriorate further into an unsafe, decrepit structure that will be required to be taken down,” the lawyers wrote.
If the historic Washington, D.C., arts complex were removed, the brief suggested it would likely be replaced by a large outdoor amphitheater facing the Potomac River — a project they said “will fail to adequately honor President John F. Kennedy, but would be simpler and more economical to build, operate, and maintain.”
The Trump administration was filing its response to a lawsuit from Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) to keep the president’s name off the building exterior and to stop a planned two-year closure for renovation work.
“President Trump’s efforts and prestige provide the sole hope for the Center’s financial survival, and structural renewal,” the attorneys write.
Without it, “the Center will continue to be in a financial and structural death spiral,” they add.
They also bash Beatty for bringing the suit, claiming that, as a Kennedy Center board member, she supported renaming the land around the center after President Trump. Beatty did, however, vote against a proposal to add Trump’s name to the entrance — alongside Kennedy’s — but that won overall approval from the board.
But Nathaniel Zelinsky, an attorney at Washington Litigation Group who is working with Beatty, said she did oppose the naming of the Plaza after Trump.
“Rep. Beatty voted no on the resolution, and she is staunchly opposed to this latest illegality — including the unlawful effort to rename the plaza. She will refute their characterization of her comments in Court,” he said in a statement.
“The government’s latest filing is a not-so-subtle threat to demolish the Kennedy Center if President Trump doesn’t get his way. This is unconscionable, it is unbecoming of the Department of Justice to even put this in a filing, and we will answer in court,” he added.
Last month, a federal judge ordered the center to remove Trump’s name, which had been added to the front of the building, and blocked a planned closure for renovations.
Trump is appealing that ruling and a hearing is scheduled for Thursday afternoon.
Congress named the performing arts center as a living memorial to Kennedy in 1964, the year after he was assassinated. The law explicitly prohibits the board from making the center into a memorial to anyone else, and from putting another person’s name on the building’s exterior.
Beatty is using that to argue that the board’s actions are illegal.
But the Trump attorneys argue that the resolution to install Trump’s name was “completely lawful,” as it is not a “memorial” under “any plausible reading of the statute.”
