WASHINGTON — The Kennedy Center board voted Thursday to designate the grounds surrounding the famed performing arts venue as “President Donald J. Trump Plaza” and to restore Trump’s name to the building’s exterior, following a federal judge’s order that it be removed.
The measures were approved by Trump-aligned board members during a meeting that stretched beyond two hours. The vote came over objections from Democrats, including Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, who criticized Trump’s proposed renovation and rebranding of the aging Washington landmark.
Trump, who serves as chair of the Kennedy Center board, joined part of the session remotely and defended his plan to invest $250 million in upgrades to the cultural institution, which first opened in 1971. The renovation project is expected to shutter the main building for roughly two years.
Under the board’s new approach, Trump’s name would be placed below the existing lettering inside the center’s expansive main hall, with signage reading: “Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump.”
The board had previously voted in December to rename the venue the “Trump Kennedy Center,” but that move was blocked by U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, who ruled that adding the sitting president’s name required approval from Congress.
Democratic lawmakers quickly condemned the board’s latest decision.
“This morning’s decision to close the Center and the surprise agenda item to put Donald Trump’s name back on the building was more of the same,” Beatty said in a statement. “This latest development is a transparent effort to circumvent the Court’s ruling, and flies in the face of the statutes that Congress passed.”
Paolo Zampolli, a Trump appointee to the board, pushed back sharply against the criticism, calling for the president’s name to be displayed prominently and dismissing objections to the temporary shutdown as ignoring the scale of repairs and modernization work the Kennedy Center needs.
“I call on everyone who is complaining about what we’re doing to go walk the building,” Zampolli told The Post. “To all of the haters, we’re not closing the center. We’re closing the main building. We’re still going to use the $300 million structure called the Reach to do shows.”
The center’s staff did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
“Under President Trump’s bold leadership, the Kennedy Center is on its way to becoming the finest cultural institution anywhere in the world,” said White House spokeswoman Liz Huston.
