Fencing goes up around the main Kennedy Center building after Trump-aligned board votes to close it

WASHINGTON (AP) — Fencing went up Wednesday around the main Kennedy Center building, a day after the Trump-aligned board voted to close most of the performing arts center for repairs. A Democratic congresswoman who is a trustee quickly sought an emergency court hearing to prevent what she called the “unlawful closing.”

The board’s vote on Tuesday came after a federal judge blocked the institution from returning President Donald Trump’s name to the building.

The Republican president had said in a social media post that the closure was needed for safety repairs. But he said the repairs, which Congress has allocated $257 million to cover, would only happen if the board was permitted to move forward with plans to add his name to the building.

Activists who have opposed the closure said there has been no vehicle or pedestrian access to the building Wednesday. An Associated Press reporter who approached the main building was told by a security guard that it was closed.

Rep. Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat and an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center board, requested an emergency court hearing Wednesday regarding what she called Trump’s “unlawful closure of the Kennedy Center.” Beatty has led efforts to block Trump’s name from being added to the building, and had a verbal confrontation with Trump Tuesday during a virtual board meeting.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ordered the Kennedy Center to respond to Beatty’s motion by Thursday morning, saying he would schedule a prompt hearing if necessary.

Trump, who was named the Kennedy Center’s chairman last year by loyalists on the board, said on social media Tuesday that he’d given $17 million to an endowment intended to support the institution.

Trump, while campaigning for a GOP Senate nominee in North Carolina, said Wednesday that his efforts to restore the aging building deserve recognition, “because frankly, if we don’t do that, it’s going to close. It’ll end up being ripped down. It’s in very, very bad shape, very dangerous shape.”

A staff member for a legal team representing Beatty was denied entrance to the building on Wednesday, Beatty’s lawyers said in a court filing. The staffer “was informed by several security staff members that the building is currently closed to the public,” the filing said.

“Given the unexplained and unlawful closure, it is possible Defendants intend to undertake immediate steps in order to make public access practically impossible for the foreseeable future, including by demolishing public avenues of access to the building, and thereby evade the court’s order,” the filing said.

Laura Bligh, who has attended protests with the advocacy group “Hands Off the Arts,” said she feared some or all of the building may be torn down before the legal case is concluded.

“The worst-case scenario is a wrecking ball,” she said, adding that the Trump administration can’t be trusted because “look what they did to the East Wing.”

The administration demolished the East Wing of the White House and is replacing it with a massive ballroom. Trump also plans to build a triumphal arch near Arlington National Cemetery and is eyeing a golf course renovation along the Potomac River.

Judge shoots down Trump requests to add name to building, plaza

The Kennedy Center board voted in August to inscribe his name on the Kennedy Center’s facade so it would read “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated By President Donald J. Trump.” If the Trump Kennedy Center Fund reached $100 million, another inscription would be added reading “Endowed by the Trump Kennedy Center Fund.”

The plaza in front of the Kennedy Center would also be renamed in Trump’s honor.

All of those proposals were shot down Tuesday by Cooper, who ruled that nothing could happen “without Congress’s blessing.”

Cooper ruled in May that the Kennedy Center illegally added Trump’s name to the building, ordering it removed. The institution’s leaders complied in June but left a tarp and scaffolding in place where Trump’s name was once displayed.

Roma Daravi, a spokesperson for the Kennedy Center, did not respond to requests for comment. But she wrote on social media that the building must be closed for safety reasons. A chunk of ceiling fell inside a main hallway of the 55-year-old building earlier this month. The partial collapse intensified calls for renovations.

“Compounding systemic infrastructure failures from decades of neglect have left a crumbling building and safety concerns require an immediate closure of @TKCOfficial main building,” she wrote Wednesday on X. “Chairman @realDonaldTrump continues to support this great American institution while legal battles halt the progress to save it.”

Maria Shriver, John F. Kennedy’s niece and former first lady of California, called the standoff over the name “a sad state of affairs” and a “tragedy.”

She said in a post on X that it appears Trump “will not rest until his name is permanently connected to the name of a great president, whose memory this building was dedicated to.”

“Imagine spending your days focused on this, while a war rages under your leadership,” she added.