DOJ says no action to add Trump's name to Kennedy Center before October

The Justice Department notified a federal judge Thursday night the Kennedy Center will delay implementation of its board's resolution honoring President Donald Trump for more than a month.  

In a filing late Thursday, the DOJ said the effort to add Trump's name to the facade and plaza will "not be effectuated before October 8, 2026."

The Trump administration's filing came following a two-hour hearing Thursday during which U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper urged the center to delay its plans to give him more time to consider his decision.

The hearing Thursday featured the lead attorney for Ohio Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty, who sits on the Kennedy Center's Board of Trustees as an ex-officio member, repeatedly accusing the Kennedy Center board of thumbing its nose at the court by voting to honor Trump after Cooper ordered his name off the building in a decision earlier this year. 

"I don't say this lightly," said attorney Nathaniel Zelinsky.  "We view this as outright defiance."

"Are they attempting a renaming?" Zelinsky asked. "Absolutely, yes. They are doing the same thing they were told they couldn't do before."

Cooper did not signal at the hearing that he necessarily agreed.  Nor did he leap at the chance to issue an order stopping the board from immediately moving forward with its plans to honor Trump as the man who "renovated and restored" the center.  

Instead, he used the hearing to probe both sides on the legality of the board's move earlier this month to again add Trump's name to the famed cultural institution.  

Cooper seemed to grapple with whether the renaming of the plaza after Trump violates a 1983 law blocking "additional memorials" in the center's "public areas." 

"Could a plaza just outside the building be considered the 'public area' of the building?" Cooper asked Zelinsky. 

Zelinsky pointed to the Justice Department's most recent filing in the case, in which administration lawyers said the board's intent was to rename "the complex" after Trump.  

But the administration's lawyer insisted the Kennedy Center would continue to exist as a memorial to John F. Kennedy.

"There is no renaming here," said Justice Department attorney Brantley Mayers.  "The board has not taken any action to rename."  

Mayers also said there was "no evidence" that the move to add Trump's name back onto the building is imminent, even as he said it was "clear that recognizing the president will help address both the financial and structural issues" he said the center faces.  

Cooper shrugged off the bluster of the Trump administration's most recent filing, which suggested the performing arts center could face demolition in the event he issued an order permanently blocking President Donald Trump's push to renovate the facility with additions intended to recognize Trump personally.

"That may be great atmospherics," Cooper told Mayers. "But I gotta say, the first four of five pages of your brief seem to be a non-sequitur.  We're here to discuss whether the board's resolution was consistent with my order and consistent with the statutes."

Cooper said he'll need to take some time to "give the issues the attention they deserve" and asked the DOJ to delay any plans to give him time to rule. 

Cooper suggested he might impose an order keeping the status quo if center management didn't go along. 

Zelinsky had asked the judge to act more urgently, pointing to the "overnight" move to add Trump's name to the center following a similar vote by the board earlier this year.

"They don't contest that the last time they did this, they ruined the marble," Zelinsky said.  "Talk about an irreparable injury! They've drilled into it and they're going to be poised to do that again."