The John F. Kennedy Memorial Performing Arts Center (commonly known as the Kennedy Center) will be renamed the Trump Kennedy Center, White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt announced Thursday.
The prestigious Washington cultural center’s board of directors, appointed by President Donald Trump in February, “just voted unanimously” to change the name, Levitt told the X-Post.
“We were able to do that because of the incredible efforts President Trump made last year to save the building,” Levitt said.
“Congratulations to President Donald J. Trump, and likewise to President Kennedy. This team is going to be a truly great team for years to come! This building will undoubtedly reach new levels of success and grandeur,” she said.
But the move could face challenges. The United States Code states that “no new monument or plaque in the nature of a monument may be designated or installed in the public areas of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.”
It would take Congress to change that, NBC News reported in July. House Republicans have already introduced at least one bill to rename the center in honor of President Trump.
“The Kennedy Center is a living monument to our fallen president and was named in his honor by federal law,” former Democratic Congressman Joe Kennedy III, Kennedy’s grandnephew, told X.
“No matter what anyone says, you can’t just change the name any more than someone can change the name of the Lincoln Memorial,” he wrote.
Levitt’s description of a center that has been saved “not just from a rebuilding standpoint, but financially and reputationally,” contrasts with reports from multiple news outlets that both ticket sales and staffing have plummeted this year.
Last month, The New York Times reported that internal statistics showed ticket sales for a typical week in October were down about 50% compared to the same period last year.
The Washington Post analyzed sales data from early September to October 19 and found that ticket sales for the center’s three major performance spaces have “declined across the board.”
A few weeks after taking office, Trump became chairman of the Kennedy Center and fired a number of existing directors, saying they “did not share our vision for a golden age of arts and culture.”
He hinted in October that a name change was imminent.
In a post on Truth Social, President Trump shared a photo of the newly painted portico on the outside of the building, under a caption praising the “new Trump Kennedy, oops, Kennedy Center columns.”
Nevertheless, he said late Thursday that he was “surprised” by the board’s decision.
“I was honored. You know, we’re saving a building,” he told reporters in the Oval Office.
The center was not originally named for Kennedy.
The facility was established in 1958 when President Dwight Eisenhower signed a bill establishing a National Cultural Center in Washington.
In 1962, Eisenhower’s successor Kennedy and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy led a $30 million fundraising effort to build the center.
President Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963. Two months later, President Lyndon Johnson signed legislation renaming the center in honor of the slain president.
Trump used the Kennedy Center extensively during the first year of his second presidential term.
He attended a board meeting there in March and claimed the building was in “severe disrepair.” In June, he appeared on the opening night of the musical “Les Misérables” with First Lady Melania Trump.
This month, President Trump took the unusual step of hosting the Kennedy Center Honors, where actors Sylvester Stallone and Michael Crawford, Gloria Gaynor and George Strait, and musicians including members of the 1980s rock band Kiss were saluted.
Mr. Trump also attended the FIFA World Cup lottery held at the center and won the soccer organization’s newly established “Peace Prize.”
