On December 18th, 2025, The Board of Trustees voted to rename the facility Kennedy Center to The Trump Kennedy Center. The decision was unanimous and spokeswoman Roma Daravi added in a statement that the re-name “Honors Trump’s work at the center since taking over early in his second term.” Trump has joked about renaming the performing arts center since he was elected chair in February. By the 18th of December, the center’s website was updated to The Trump Kennedy Center.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a post on X, “Congratulations to President Donald J. Trump, and likewise, congratulations to President Kennedy, because this will be a truly great team long into the future. The building will no doubt attain new levels of success and grandeur.”
While the White House reported that the vote was unanimous, Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty—an ex-member of the board—said that was not the case.
“I was on that call and as I tried to push my button to voice my concern, to ask questions, and certainly not to vote in support of this, I was muted. Each time I tried to speak, I was muted,” she said on a video posted on X.
Beatty was not the only person against the renaming of the center. Questions have been raised about the legality of this move. Congress renamed the arts center after former President John F. Kennedy in legislation passed after his 1963 assasination and federal law requires that the board “assure that after December 2, 1983, no additional memorials or plaques in the nature of memorials shall be designated or installed in the public areas of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.” Joe Kennedy III, a former congressman and great nephew of the late president, brought up the law in his own statement.
“The Kenney 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.
After the renaming of the facility, many artists cancelled scheduled performances at the Center. Among them is The Cookers, a two decade old jazz supergroup who withdrew from “A Jazz New Year’s Eve, and Doug Varone and Dancers, a dance group based in New York, who reported on Instagram announcing that they are cancelling their April performance there. They also added that they “can no longer permit ourselves nor ask our audiences to step inside this once great institution.”
Performer Issa Rae and the producers of “Hamilton” also cancelled their performances and musicians Ben Folds and Renee Fleming stepped down from advisory roles. On Saturday, saxophone player Billy Harper responded to the situation on Facebook, saying that he “would never even consider performing in a venue bearing a name(and being controlled by the kind of board) that represents overt racism and deliberate destruction of African American music and culture. The same music I devoted my life to creating and advancing.”
The most surprising development from this incident comes from Toby Morton, a TV writer and producer for the satirical sitcom South Park. Morton had purchased the rights to the domain trumpkennedycenter.org in August, predicting that Trump would change the name of the center. Morton has said that for the past five years, he has been “grabbing domains tied to politicians and authoritarian figures and turning them into blunt, often uncomfortable reflections of what they actually represent.
Visitors to trumpkennedycenter.org found an announcement for a show by the “Epstein Dancers” instead of any other artists. Another group of British Satirists has acquired trump-kennedycenter.org and followed Morton’s lead in ridiculing Trump, advertising a rock and roll musical with Jeffery Epstein as the protagonist. Comedy in general has been an effective counter to political lunacy, with South Park being one of the leaders in making fun of the current state of politics. As South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker explained last year to the New York Times “It’s not that we got all political. It’s that politics became pop culture.”
