WASHINGTON — The Kennedy Center Board of Trustees voted 20-3 to place an inscription on the exterior of the Washington performing arts complex crediting President Trump with its restoration, and approved a second resolution closing part of the venue for renovations by the same margin. The board also moved to rename the center's surrounding grounds "President Donald J. Trump Plaza" and wants the words "Endowed by the Trump Kennedy Center Fund" added to the building once a dedicated fund hits $100 million.
The exterior inscription, approved Thursday, will read: "The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump." The language places Trump's name directly beneath the center's official title—a permanent addition to one of the most prominent cultural venues in the United States.
Three members voted against both resolutions: Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.; Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio; and Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash. All three are congressional appointees to the board. Their opposition did not slow either vote; the 20-3 margin on the inscription resolution exceeded the two-thirds threshold associated with supermajority decisions in institutional governance.
The renovation driving the partial closure is funded by $257 million that Trump secured from Congress to address deferred maintenance accumulated over decades. An independent engineering analysis identified water infiltration, damaged electrical rooms and soffit panels weighing more than 2,000 pounds each that have reached end-of-life status and present a public safety risk. Hundreds of structural failure points in the parking garage were also flagged.
The board weighed two closure scenarios before settling on the partial-closure plan. Under the approved approach, the center projects a $3.4 million surplus. The alternative—four years of revolving closures—carried a projected $78 million deficit.
The $100 million endowment threshold tied to the plaza naming and the building inscription gives the board a measurable benchmark before the most prominent naming elements take effect. The fund is called the Trump Kennedy Center Fund; no timeline for reaching the target was specified in the materials reviewed.
Trump took the chair of the Kennedy Center board after his January 2025 inauguration, part of a broader effort by his administration to reshape leadership of the federally chartered institution. He attended a guided tour and led a board meeting at the center on March 17, 2025. The board that voted Thursday is composed largely of members appointed under his administration.
The dispute over the center's direction has spilled into Congress. Whitehouse has drawn pushback from at least one board member for declining invitations to engage with the Trump-chaired institution. His no vote Thursday tracks with Democratic resistance to what critics describe as the politicization of a venue established by Congress in 1971 as a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy.
Proponents on the board frame the naming and inscription differently: Trump secured a quarter-billion dollars in federal funding to fix physical problems that previous administrations left unaddressed. The renovation addresses infrastructure that the board's own resolution describes as a public safety concern—specifically the soffit panels, which weigh more than a ton each and are past their operational life.
The Kennedy Center sits on the Potomac River in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood and draws roughly two million visitors annually in a normal operating year. Any partial closure will affect programming and ticket revenue during the renovation period, though the board's financial analysis showed the surplus scenario makes that trade-off viable compared with the deficit projected under a longer revolving-closure model.
The inscription and plaza naming require no act of Congress—both fall within the board's authority over the federally chartered institution. The $100 million endowment threshold for the building inscription means the fund must be built through private contributions before that element is executed.
