The Kennedy Center is following a federal judge’s order by removing Donald Trump’s name from the iconic institution — and you can watch it happen live thanks to a livestream provided by MS Now. Check it out below.
Last month, Judge Casey Cooper ruled that the Kennedy Center’s board — handpicked by Trump — illegally circumvented Congress by ordering the John F. Kennedy Center be renamed “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.” In his ruling, Judge Cooper stated plainly that the law “makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President [John F.] Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board’s unilateral say-so… Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.”
The Center was given 14 days to remove all signage and scrub references to Trump from its website. The latter action began earlier in June, but the Board was still attempting legal maneuvers to halt the removal of Trump’s name from the facade ahead of the deadline. On June 11th, the Board filed a last-minute appeal, and on June 12th, the appeal was denied.
Trump’s name has already been removed from the Kennedy Center website, and emails to members from earlier this month had begun dropping the Trump branding. The letters on the facade were all that remained.
