The Kennedy Center board voted to change the name of the performing arts center to the Trump-Kennedy Center, according to the White House.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on social media that the board voted unanimously to make the change because of the “incredible work President Trump has done over the last year to save the building.”
Leavitt also congratulated President John F. Kennedy, saying, “This will be a great team in the future! The building will undoubtedly reach new levels of success and greatness.”
The change will certainly spark controversy, particularly in Washington DC, where the center has been an iconic landmark since it was built and named after Kennedy.
Speaking in the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump said he was “surprised” and “honored” by the decision.
Shortly after taking office, Trump fired all members of the center’s board of directors and replaced them with allies, who then voted to name Trump chairman of the board. His close advisor, Richard Grenell, became chairman of the board.
Attorney General Pam Bondi, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Second Lady Usha Vance, as well as several other administration officials. and political allies are also currently on the board.
The president also secured about $257 million in funding from Congress to pay for major renovations and other costs at the site, and recently had it host the FIFA World Cup draw.
“We saved it,” Trump said of the center on Thursday. “I was really in bad physical condition.”
While Leavitt and Trump claimed the board had voted “unanimously” to change the center’s name, at least one board member has disputed that.
“This was not unanimous,” said Ohio Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty, one of the board members. “They silenced my call and did not allow me to speak or express my opposition to this measure.”
Kennedy’s grandson Jack Schlossberg, a Trump critic currently running for Congress, said on X that “the microphones were muted” and that the board’s “NO vote was unanimous.”
Other members of Kennedy’s family have also criticized the reported change.
Joe Kennedy III, a former member of the House and great-nephew of the late president, posted on X that “the Kennedy Center is a living memorial to a fallen president and is named after President Kennedy by federal law.”
“As soon as it can be renamed, someone can rename the Lincoln Memorial, no matter what they say,” he added.
Kennedy’s niece, Maria Shriver, wrote that “it is beyond crazy” that Trump “would think that adding his name in front of President Kennedy’s name is acceptable.”
“It’s downright strange. It’s obsessive in a strange way,” he wrote.
Work on a national performing arts center began in the 1950s and after Kennedy, the 35th president, was assassinated in 1963, Congress decided to make it a living memorial to him.
Some U.S. lawmakers and jurists were quick to point out that because the center was named in a 1964 law, Congress must vote to make the name change official.
This summer, for example, a measure was introduced to officially name the downtown opera house First Lady Melania Trump’s Opera House as part of a spending bill. The bill has not yet been put to a vote.
However, that doesn’t necessarily stop the center from changing its name on its website or on entrances, and potentially on the exterior of the building.
A similar name change occurred in September at the Department of Defense, now known as the War Department, without congressional approval.
Trump’s involvement in the center has been criticized by some political opponents as unnecessary political interference in the arts by the White House. Lin Manuel Miranda and his producing partner canceled a Hamilton performance downtown, and other visiting artists canceled their planned appearances in recent months.
At the same time, locals appear to have stayed away, with the Washington Post and other local news outlets reporting that ticket sales and subscriptions have fallen since Trump took office.
Earlier this year, the president said he was “98% involved” in selecting this year’s Kennedy Center honorees, which included action star Sylvester Stallone and members of the rock band KISS.
At the time, Trump said he had rejected the “wokesters” from being considered for the honor.
In June, during Trump’s first appearance at the Kennedy Center since returning to the White House, audience members booed and cheered him and First Lady Melania Trump as they entered the presidential box.
