Trump administration threatened to demolish the Kennedy Center. Without the president’s name, it says, donors will not contribute

For the first time, the Trump administration has raised the possibility that the Kennedy Center in Washington could end up being demolished. It wrote this in a court filing on Monday, in which it is defending itself against a lawsuit by Democratic Representative Joyce Beattyová. She wants to prevent two things at once: the complete closure of the national stage for two years and the return of the president’s name to the building’s facade. NBC News ↗

The wording in the filing is direct. “Without this effort, the center will continue to deteriorate until it becomes an unsafe, dilapidated structure that will have to be torn down. Only then will it be decided what to build on the site, for example a large outdoor amphitheater overlooking the Potomac River, as some have proposed for many years,” wrote Justice Department lawyer Brantley T. Mayers. In the same document, he acknowledges that such an amphitheater would not be able to “properly honor” John F. Kennedy, but says it could supposedly be built, operated and maintained more easily and cheaply. The department’s lawyers described the building itself as “structurally unsound, fundamentally unsafe and an embarrassment to the nation’s capital.” NBC News ↗

The dispute has already gone through one court round. Federal Judge Christopher Cooper ruled in Beattyová’s favor at the end of May, blocked the closure plan at the time and ordered the president’s name to be removed from the building. He explicitly stated that he was not categorically banning the center from closing or carrying out construction work, but wanted the board to comply with the statutory minimum. He criticized the board for failing in its duties to the institution when it decided on the closure, and described its procedure as uninformed and seemingly predetermined. At the same time, he noted that only Congress can rename a building created as a “living memorial” to the assassinated president. Workers removed the name from the facade, and the portico has since been covered by construction sheeting. CBS News ↗

In mid-August, the board, whose membership Trump had reshuffled and which he himself had taken over as chair, voted on both matters again. It approved the closure for a second time and added to the official name John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts the phrase “restored and renovated by President Donald J. Trump”; the adjacent grounds are to be called the Plaza of President Donald J. Trump. The previous attempt to rename the entire institution the Trump-Kennedy Center was struck down by the court. Beattyová’s lawyers wrote in a filing last week that this time the president’s name would appear on the front portico not once, but twice. CBS News ↗

The core of the defense is a claim about money. According to the filing, the board recognizes that “the efforts and prestige of President Trump are the only hope for the center’s financial survival and structural renewal,” and without prominent recognition of the administration, supposedly “donors will not contribute and the center will continue to spiral downward in a financial and structural death spiral.” Mayers adds that Trump secured approximately $258 million from Congress for capital renewal and obtained a new donor base. The filing does not state what has happened to that money so far. It also describes the president as “uniquely qualified” to lead the renewal thanks to his experience in real estate and construction. Index.hr ↗

This argument stands precisely against what The Washington Post found about the center’s finances. Budgets, minutes from board meetings and financial presentations available to the newspaper show that revenues plunged after Trump’s name appeared on the building. For the 2026 fiscal year, even after significant cuts, the center expected a loss of $23 million. Instead of originally budgeted revenues of roughly $220 million, a forecast from late May expected only around $124 million, with earned revenue, especially ticket sales, expected to miss the target by seventy percent and donations by twenty-five percent. A person familiar with the finances told the newspaper that the takeover of management was a hard blow, but the renaming brought the center to the very financial brink. “Donors stopped coming, ticket sales collapsed, artists disappeared, it felt like the end of the world,” the person described it. Der Tagesspiegel ↗ The Washington Post ↗

The talk of demolition also contradicts what the center’s own management has said about the building so far. Executive director Matt Floca described the renovation as the replacement of stage lifts and rigging systems, extensive electrical work and repairs to leaks, meaning two years of work with operations closed. In an earlier court filing, he stated that the exterior of the main building would not change significantly and that the center would not be stripped down to its steel structure. An institution official told journalists during an April tour that nobody would stand in Georgetown, look across the river and see straight through the building. A center spokesperson explained on Tuesday that the filing “describes a hypothetical scenario of what could happen if partisan interests blocked the urgently needed renovation.” NBC News ↗

Beattyová’s lawyers Norm Eisen and Nathaniel Zelinsky responded sharply. “This is a barely concealed threat to demolish the Kennedy Center if the president does not get what he wants,” they said. They called it unacceptable and something the Justice Department should not have included in a filing at all, and announced a response in court. The department, by contrast, argues that the board’s resolution is entirely lawful and that the congresswoman is leading a partisan-motivated fight against any recognition of the president’s merits. “Even Beattyová should prefer a healthy, restored center to a decaying wreck that is doomed to inevitable destruction or collapse,” the filing says. CBS News ↗

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So far, only a narrow slice has been verified. The Justice Department filing mentioning demolition and an amphitheater exists, and its wording is cited consistently by American and European media. However, it is not an official intention, and no plan to demolish the nearly fifty-five-year-old building exists. It is a scenario the department sketched out in the dispute in case the court rules against it. Cooper’s May decision, the removal of the name from the facade and the board’s August vote are documented. What remains open is how the court will rule; a hearing on the renaming and closure is scheduled in Washington for Thursday afternoon. According to filings from last week, the administration has paused the latest changes to the building until September 8. In our monitoring of Slovak and Czech sources, the topic has not appeared once in the past ten days. Le Figaro ↗

Photo: The facade of the Kennedy Center on June 26, 2026, twelve days after workers removed Trump’s name from it. Most of the inscription was still covered by sheeting at the time. Author: G. Edward Johnson / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 4.0.