Trump-aligned board votes to put his name on the Kennedy Center — again

H1: Trump-aligned board votes to put his name on the Kennedy Center — again

The Kennedy Center board on Thursday voted to again attach President Donald Trump's name to the performing arts center, two people with knowledge of the vote told POLITICO, its latest attempt to honor the president after a judge blocked an effort to rename the Kennedy Center after him in May. The board — which is mostly Trump loyalists after the president dismissed Democratic-appointed members on the historically bipartisan body — voted to "honor the President's contribution with an inscribed recognition on the building," with the new signage reading: "The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump." The two people were granted anonymity to describe the private meeting. A spokesperson for the Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The two people also said the board voted Thursday to shutter the main building for two years, the culmination of Trump's long-term effort to make sweeping changes to the performing arts institution. It's the second time the board has voted to wind down operations at the Kennedy Center to make way for repairs, even as critics charge the White House has only pushed for a temporary closure to mask lagging ticket sales associated with Trump's overhaul of the space. A federal judge who previously blocked the shutdown plan would need to sign off on the closure. The president wrested control of the Kennedy Center's operations shortly after returning to the Oval Office last year. He assumed the chairmanship of the institution, dismissed several key trustees and named a close ally to run the center on an interim basis. Close Trump confidants including Sergio Gor, Dan Scavino and Susie Wiles are among the trustees Trump has appointed. The new-look board last year voted — "unanimously," according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt — to rename the center after Trump in addition to former President John F. Kennedy. A judge blocked the new moniker in May, and Trump's name came off the main building's white facade in mid-June. The judge's decision — as well as his ruling blocking the institution's closure — prompted the president to declare on Truth Social that he would work "with Congress to transfer this failing Institution back to them so they can make a determination as to what to do with it." "Unless I am free to do what I do better than anyone else, bring this Institution back, physically, financially, and artistically, I have no interest in continuing what could only be a hopeless journey into 'NEVER NEVER LAND,'" Trump wrote in May.