Trump-appointed Kennedy Center board to vote on closing building for renovations

The Kennedy Center’s Trump-appointed board will vote Tuesday on closing the institution’s main building for renovations, after quietly shelving a planned vote to restore Donald Trump’s name to the facade.

In a notice filed Monday in the US district court for the District of Columbia, government lawyers disclosed that Joe LaFauci, the center’s vice-president of board relations, told the board that Tuesday’s meeting “is now focused exclusively on the necessary closure of the Center”, citing “recently exacerbated structural emergencies”.

The vote, scheduled for 12.30pm, follows a weekend of dueling court filings in the ongoing lawsuit over the center’s branding, brought by Democratic congresswoman Joyce Beatty, an ex officio board member. Lawyers in that case are due before US district judge Christopher Cooper for a status conference at 10am, hours before the board meets.

The draft resolution up for a vote would close the main building on safety grounds, describing it as unsafe for continued occupancy. Beatty’s lawyers dispute that characterization, arguing in a court filing that the safety consultants cited, Delta Consulting Group, “expressly disclaimed” reaching any such opinion. Norm Eisen, one of Beatty’s attorneys, called the board’s weekend document dump “an outrageous act of hostage taking”, writing on X: “Pay up or the Kennedy Center closes, & the price is Trump’s name on the building.”

Eisen said separately on Tuesday that the board had “backed down” on pushing a fresh renaming vote, though it planned to press ahead with the closure.

The now-shelved second resolution had listed 10 options for inscribing Trump’s name and the “Trump Kennedy Center Fund” beneath the center’s name on the exterior marble, tying various forms of credit to renovation, endowment or oversight of the building. In the Monday filing, the board said that trustees “stand by the recognition resolution proposed and passed by the Board on August 13, 2026”.

Cooper ordered Trump’s name removed from the building in May, ruling that only Congress has authority to rename it, and the lettering came down in June. The board voted in August to reinstate an inscription and proceed with the closure, a decision Tuesday’s meeting is expected to formalize.

Howard Lutnick, the US commerce secretary, posted a security video on Monday appearing to show debris falling in the center’s grand foyer, saying “the entire building is in this kind of shape” and that only Trump “can deliver the renovation on time and on budget”. Trump then shared the post on Truth Social.

Tuesday’s vote is the latest turn in a financial and legal fight that has dogged the center since Trump installed himself as chair in February 2025, firing the board and its longtime president, Deborah Rutter. Current leadership has blamed the crisis on mismanagement by Rutter’s team, alleging a “falsified” budget with $26m in “phantom revenue”, a claim Rutter and former board chair David Rubenstein have both denied, noting the center’s finances were independently audited.