Legacy has always mattered at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The center was built as a memorial to an assassinated president and designed to honor restraint and artistic excellence.
But thanks to Donald Trump, that sense of restraint left the building on Thursday. According to The White House, the Kennedy Center will now be known as “Trump-Kennedy Center.”
And even if the president has been teasing the name for months online, the announcement still shook up Washington.
On December 18, 2025, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt revealed that the Kennedy Center’s board of trustees unanimously voted to rename the institution after Trump.
Roma Daravi, the center’s vice president of public relations, told USA Today that the full name of the institution would now be The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.
When the president returned to office for the second time earlier this year, he appointed himself as the chairman of the center after removing multiple board members.
Trump not only handpicked the board of trustees but also appointed Richard Grenell, his envoy for special missions, as the president of the Kennedy Center.
🚨BREAKING: Trump slips and says he’ll rename the Kennedy Center the “Trump Kennedy Center” next week.
There is something seriously wrong Trump’s brain. It’s beyond ego. Trump is OBSESSED with rewriting America in his own image, erasing legacies greater than his. It’s sick. pic.twitter.com/wEB9rehplc
— CALL TO ACTIVISM (@CalltoActivism) August 22, 2025
Interestingly, the board meeting for the renaming vote wasn’t held in Washington. Instead, it was organized at the Palm Beach home of casino magnate Steve Wynn, whose wife, Andrea Wynn, sits on the board herself.
Reports suggest that after Lee Greenwood performed God Bless the USA, longtime Donald Trump aide and recent ambassadorial nominee to India, Sergio Gor, proposed the name change.
Representative Joyce Beatty of Ohio, one of the Democrats to sit on the board despite not being appointed by Trump voiced her opinion against the vote.
Beatty took to X (formerly Twitter) to share that she was not in favor of the decision. However, when Beatty dialed in remotely and attempted to object to the vote, she was allegedly muted.
“As I tried to push my button to voice my concern to ask questions ‒ and to certainly not to vote in support of this ‒ I was muted,” she claimed.
“Each time I tried to speak, I was muted,” Beatty added. She also alleged that the meeting was heavy on Trump’s praise and barely even a procedure.
Legality no longer matters, it seems. The Kennedy Center is supposed to be named by federal law, and many staffers have begun asking whether a board vote can override Congress in the first place.
Michael Kaiser ran the center from 2001 to 2014, and he said naming any part of the building after another person was never permitted because it is an official memorial to President Kennedy.
Members of the Kennedy family are furious with Donald Trump’s latest whim, too.
Kerry Kennedy wrote on social media that President Kennedy stood for justice and compassion, which she believes are the values Trump opposes.
Joe Kennedy III argued that renaming the Kennedy Center would be as absurd as renaming the Lincoln Memorial.
The Kennedy Center is a living memorial to a fallen president and named for President Kennedy by federal law. It can no sooner be renamed than can someone rename the Lincoln Memorial, no matter what anyone says. https://t.co/VpZhNvx7So
— Joe Kennedy III (@joekennedy) December 18, 2025
A senior White House official said that the administration is disputing the idea that Congress should approve the change.
Netizens also condemned the idea of renaming the institution, with one commentator accusing the President of turning the national arts treasure “into his own sleazy political stage.”
Trump just turned the Kennedy Center from a national arts treasure into his own sleazy political stage. A place built to protect American culture is now hosting his U.S.–Saudi forum like it’s a campaign rally in a tux. Artists are livid, donors are walking, and the institution’s… pic.twitter.com/tmYR2Kpi6i
— P a u l ◉ (@SkylineReport) November 19, 2025
Another user also called out the president’s “narcissism” and said, “This man’s ego is a black hole.”
This man’s ego is a Black Hole. His narcissism is insatiable. Every attempt to satisfy it only fuels his overwhelming need for yet more flattery.
Kennedy Center to be renamed Trump-Kennedy Center, White House says https://t.co/PKO8MIzyWo
— Alan Lester (@aljhlester) December 19, 2025
Meanwhile, Donald Trump supporters on the board are framing the name change as an evolution rather than an erasure of history.
Andrea Wynn insisted the Kennedy memorial will remain intact and that Trump (like Kennedy) is also a lover of the arts.
But of course, this claim raised eyebrows as Trump is known to attack drag performances and other programming he thinks is unacceptable.
Come to think of it, the rename fits into a pattern: Rose Garden makeover, East Wing tweaks, talk of Department of War, plans for an Arc de Triomphe-style monument, etc. But now who will America memorialize?
