FFS!! 🤬
Kennedy Center Board Decides to Inscribe Trump’s Name on Building
The vote to add “Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump” is an aggressive test of a judge’s order to remove his name.
The board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts voted on Thursday to inscribe President Trump’s name on the building beneath the main signage, according to two people with direct knowledge of the proceedings, aggressively testing a federal judge’s order.
According to the resolution approved by the Trump-allied board, the inscription underneath the institution’s name would read: “Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump.” The board’s decision, which directs officials to act by “all legal means,” came shortly after it voted to move forward with Mr. Trump’s plan to shutter the building for renovations.
The president’s name was added to the building last year, but the judge ordered the letters taken down, finding that only Congress had the authority to change the institution’s name. The center removed Mr. Trump’s name in June but is appealing the ruling.
The move appeared to be a creative workaround to a provision in the federal law governing the Kennedy Center that says “no additional memorials or plaques in the nature of memorials shall be designated or installed in the public areas.”
In Thursday’s resolution, the board directed officials to honor Mr. Trump for bringing the center back “from the brink of disaster,” presenting a series of possibilities that include naming the center’s grounds the “President Donald J. Trump Plaza.”
“It is hereby resolved,” the measure said, “that the center desires to recognize and honor President Trump’s existential and unprecedented contributions to the survival of the center by all legal means.”
Both decisions will be subject to the scrutiny of the judge who found that the board had been “derelict” in considering the closure plan ahead of its original vote. Mr. Trump announced in February that the center would close for two years, with the objective of transforming what he called a “tired, broken and dilapidated” institution.
The board voted on Thursday to close the Kennedy Center’s main building, while keeping a newer addition to the campus, known as the Reach, open for limited programming and to operate as an active memorial to John F. Kennedy.
(Continues NYT)