Mary Trump Says Donald Trump's Board Defied Judge on Kennedy Center Name

Mary Trump says the Kennedy Center board her uncle picked by hand is defying a federal judge. The board voted in August to carve Donald Trump's name into the building's facade, less than three months after a court ruled that only Congress can rename the center.

On an episode of The Mary Trump Podcast, the host and niece of the president walked through the yearlong fight over the performing arts center. She said the August vote showed the board would not let the matter drop. "They're just going to keep trying," she said.

The record bears out her account through mid-August. Her episode stops there. On September 15, the same judge blocked the new inscription.

How the Kennedy Center Naming Fight Unfolded

Trump took control of the board in February 2025 and was elected its chairman. On December 18, 2025, the board voted to rename the venue the Trump Kennedy Center, the Associated Press reported. Congress named the center for President John F. Kennedy in 1964, the year after his assassination, and Democrats said only Congress could change that name.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper agreed. In a May ruling, he wrote that "Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name and only Congress can change it." He also blocked the board's plan to close the center for a two-year renovation, calling its March 16 closure vote "ill-informed and seemingly preordained."

Among the artists who objected to the renaming was jazz musician Chuck Redd, who canceled the Christmas Eve concert he had hosted at the center for roughly two decades. The Kennedy Center sued him. The suit was dismissed in June, with the court finding it amounted to unlawful retaliation. On August 10, D.C. Superior Court Judge Tanya Jones Bosier ordered the center to pay him $252,479.70 in legal fees, NBC Washington reported. A Kennedy Center spokesperson said it would appeal.

Mary Trump on the Tarp and the August Vote

Mary Trump said the tarp over the facade was put up "to cover up his shame" and has stayed there "in contravention to the judge's orders."

The Justice Department disputes that. In a court filing, it said the barrier was "a necessary element of the ongoing construction activities at the Center," The Washington Sun reported. Lawyers for Representative Joyce Beatty, the Ohio Democrat and board member who brought the case, called the tarp a "childish refusal" to accept the court's ruling.

On August 13, the board voted 20-3 to add "Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump" beneath the center's name, to call the grounds "President Donald J. Trump Plaza" and to close the building for up to two years, Time reported. Beatty called the vote "a transparent effort to circumvent the Court's ruling."

Mary Trump said the board again approved the closure "despite the federal court ruling that had blocked its earlier closure plan." She described her uncle in personal terms: "Because he is so thirsty and insecure, it is unbearable for him not to have his name and his likeness taint everything." She added: "He is a black hole of need into which the light of compliments is swallowed and disappeared."

Judge Blocks the Inscription

On September 15, Cooper barred the board from adding the inscription crediting Trump with the building's restoration or renaming the grounds, CBS News reported. "Defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress's blessing," he wrote. The Justice Department had argued that "there is no renaming here."

The board voted the same day to close the center, and the administration said it would appeal Cooper's ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Trump wrote on Truth Social that construction would not begin until that court rules. If the ruling is "a negative one... and is not overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court," he wrote, "the Reconstruction and the Renovation of The Kennedy Center will not take place," CBS News reported.