US judge weighs challenge to restore Trump's name to Kennedy Center

An attorney ‌for ​a U.S. lawmaker on Thursday urged a federal judge to again block the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington from inscribing President Donald Trump’s name on the facade. The hearing before U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper marks the second time the court ‌has been asked to stop the Kennedy Center from putting Trump’s name on the building that Congress named as a "living memorial" to Kennedy, the 35th U.S. president, who was assassinated in 1963. In May, Cooper ordered the entertainment and cultural venue to remove Trump's name from the building, siding with Democratic U.S. Representative Joyce Beatty of Ohio in a lawsuit challenging the renaming. Cooper said the ‌U.S. Congress established the Kennedy Center's name and that "only Congress can change it." On August 13, the Kennedy Center board, composed of Trump-appointed members, voted to again alter the building's signage, this ‌time to read "The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts Renovated and Restored by President Donald J. Trump," while naming the center's grounds the "President Donald J. Trump Plaza."

"We view this as outright defiance" of the court's prior order, a lawyer for Beatty, Nathaniel Zelinsky, told the judge at Thursday's hearing. Beatty, who serves on the Kennedy Center's board by virtue of her position in Congress, sued after the center changed its marble facade in ⁠December to ​read: "The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial ⁠Center for the Performing Arts." The Kennedy Center in June removed Trump's name from the facade, and a large tarp has covered the wall since then. The administration lost an early effort in a federal appeals court to ⁠put Trump’s name back up while it appeals Cooper’s order. Speaking outside the court before the hearing, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, whom Trump appointed to help oversee the Kennedy Center, defended the latest move. "The board overwhelmingly ​voted for this,” Lutnick told reporters.

He praised the president’s efforts to restore the building, saying Trump “has the power, and he has the expertise, to get this done.” Cooper ⁠at the hearing rejected any suggestion from the administration that his oversight of Beatty's lawsuit was hindering repairs to the building, saying his earlier order allowed the administration to move forward with needed work. “No one is stopping the center ⁠from ​doing any necessary repairs,” Cooper said. “The notion that continued judicial involvement is standing in the way of accomplishing necessary repairs is not quite fair.” Beatty has asked the court to block the new renaming plan by September 8. The administration has said it would not take action until then on the renaming. The administration countered that adding the new language does not violate the ⁠court's injunction because the building would still be named the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. It said the "renovated and restored by" inscription simply acknowledges Trump's role. “There is ⁠no renaming here,” Justice Department lawyer Brantley Mayers argued ⁠at Thursday’s hearing. The administration's court filing described what it called Trump's efforts to save the Kennedy Center, including with a two-year planned closure for renovations. "Without those efforts, the Center will deteriorate further into an unsafe, decrepit structure that will be required to be taken down, with ‌a determination to follow on ‌what to build on the site," the administration said.