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With the Trump DOJ, there are moments when a court filing is so strange that you have to kind of blink, shake your head, then go back and read it again to make sure you have understood what the lawyers are actually arguing.
That happened to me this week with a filing by Donald Trump’s Justice Department in the increasingly bizarre legal battle over the Kennedy Center.
The immediate dispute sounds is clear enough: Can Trump put his name back on the building after a federal judge ordered it removed?
But DOJ’s answer to that question goes considerably further. The government argues that Trump is uniquely capable of saving the Kennedy Center; that his name is important to raising the money necessary to renovate it; and that without his intervention the building could deteriorate until it has to be torn down—perhaps to be replaced by an outdoor amphitheater overlooking the Potomac.
The lawyers for plaintiff Rep. Joyce Beatty read the filing and reached roughly the same conclusion I did.
They responded yesterday, portraying the DOJ filing brilliantly and accurately as the threat it actually is:
What a nice Kennedy Center you have here. What a shame should something happen to it.
Yes. That is language from the plaintiff’s reply in an actual federal court case involving one of America’s great cultural institutions. But the language in the DOJ filing it’s responding to is what makes it such a brilliant rejoinder—because the DOJ filing really does feel like a mafia “such a nice thing you have hear” threat.
And once you dig into the filings and newly disclosed Kennedy Center board minutes, the story gets stranger still.
First, Remember How We Got Here
Congress designated the Kennedy Center as the national memorial to John F. Kennedy after his assassination. That matters legally, because Congress didn’t merely give a performing-arts building a convenient name. Federal law established it as a memorial to Kennedy.
After Trump took control of the Kennedy Center board last year and replaced many of its members with allies, the board voted in December to add Trump’s name to the institution. “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts” appeared on the building.
Beatty, an Ohio Democratic congresswoman who sits on the board, sued.
In May, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper sided with her.
His reasoning was not particularly complicated. Congress had created the Kennedy Center as a memorial to Kennedy, and the board did not have the authority to change that.
“Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name,” Cooper concluded, “and only Congress can change it.”
He ordered Trump’s name removed.
Workers took the letters down in June. Then they covered the name with tarp and scaffolding that still remains up in late August.
On August 13, Trump’s Kennedy Center board approved a new approach. Rather than formally renaming the institution, it would put new lettering on the building:
“The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump.”
If a Trump Kennedy Center Fund succeeds in raising $100 million, additional language would credit Trump with “endowing” it as well.
And the surrounding grounds would become “President Donald J. Trump Plaza.”
The distinction is essentially this: We aren’t renaming the Kennedy Center for Trump. We are simply putting Trump’s name prominently on the Kennedy Center while also naming the plaza for Trump. Like “Uniqlo Field at Dodger Stadium.”
Beatty went back to court.
Then the Justice Department Made an Extraordinary Argument
DOJ filed its response this week on behalf of the Kennedy Center trustees.
There are conventional legal arguments in it. The board says its new plan complies with Judge Cooper’s ruling because John F. Kennedy remains the person for whom the institution is named. The additional Trump inscription, it argues, merely recognizes the president’s role in restoring and renovating the building.
A judge can decide whether that distinction passes muster.
But then the filing goes somewhere considerably more unusual.
DOJ describes America’s premier center for the performing arts as “structurally unsound, fundamentally unsafe, and embarrassing to the Nation’s Capital.” More importantly, it argues that Donald Trump himself—and public recognition of Trump—may be essential to the building’s survival. I.e. “Only Trump Can Fix It” is the substance if not the exact words.
Here is the government’s argument in its own words:
The Board also underscores, and the undisputed evidence demonstrates, that without the prominent recognition of The Trump Administration, and President Trump’s efforts, the donors will not contribute, and the Center will continue to be in a financial and structural death spiral.
The Trump Administration, and President Donald J. Trump, should, therefore, be given the respect and dignity of acknowledgement.
That is quite a claim.
The argument isn’t simply that Trump deserves credit for helping renovate the Kennedy Center. DOJ is telling a federal judge that unless Trump receives prominent public recognition, donors will not contribute and the institution will continue its “financial and structural death spiral.”
Elsewhere, the filing describes Trump as essentially the Kennedy Center’s last best hope:
The Board recognizes that President Trump’s efforts and prestige provide the sole hope for the Center’s financial survival, and structural renewal.
DOJ points to Trump’s role in securing $258 million from Congress for capital restoration and says he has “marshalled a new donor base” to finance an endowment. The government then spells out what it believes could happen if the court interferes with the board’s effort to recognize him:
An order blocking the Board from appropriately recognizing President Trump will cause donors to flee, financial contributions to dry up, and structural rehabilitation to stop.
And then comes the remarkable part.
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, such as a large outdoor amphitheater overlooking the Potomac River that has been proposed, by some, for many years.
Read that sequence again.
Block the board from appropriately recognizing Trump → donors flee → contributions dry up → renovation stops → the Kennedy Center deteriorates → the building eventually has to be torn down.
And DOJ doesn’t merely invoke demolition as an abstract possibility. It volunteers an idea for what could replace John F. Kennedy’s national memorial: a large outdoor amphitheater overlooking the Potomac.
This is not some overheated interpretation supplied by Trump’s critics. The United States Department of Justice chose to put this argument into a federal court filing.
And that is what prompted Beatty’s lawyers to respond yesterday with perhaps the most memorable passage yet filed in this very strange case:
“What a nice Kennedy Center you have here. What a shame should something happen to it.”
They called the government’s position “a breathtaking assault on the rule of law.”
“It is delusional. And it must stop.”
Then We Got a Look at the Board Minutes
And this morning NPR’s Anastasia Tsioulcas added another fascinating layer.
NPR obtained Kennedy Center board minutes from June 11 and August 13 that provide the first detailed public look at how this supposedly indispensable renovation plan was developed.
The renovation is enormous.
The Kennedy Center proposes shutting most of the complex for approximately two years while undertaking at least $250 million in work.
The board received advice from Darin Buchalter, CEO of Delta Consulting Group, a construction and real-estate consulting firm. JLL, the giant commercial real-estate company, has also been involved.
What NPR could not find in the minutes is almost as interesting as what it found.
According to NPR, the minutes contain no evidence that the board consulted arts administrators, performers or acoustical experts before developing and approving the renovation plan.
To channel Gomer Pyle: “Surprise, surprise, surprise.”
Think about that for a moment.
This isn’t an office building.
The Kennedy Center contains some of the most specialized performance spaces in America. Its Concert Hall is home to the National Symphony Orchestra. It has an opera house, theaters and spaces specifically designed for music performed without amplification. Acoustics aren’t decorative. They are part of the building’s basic function.
NPR asked Delta and JLL about their experience renovating performing-arts facilities with these sorts of acoustic requirements.
Neither responded.
Meanwhile, Delta’s detailed report on the condition of the Kennedy Center remains under seal.
That doesn’t establish that the renovation is unnecessary or poorly conceived. The building is more than half a century old, and nobody seriously disputes that it needs substantial work.
But it does raise a reasonable question about the extraordinary certainty with which the government now describes Trump’s particular renovation plan as essential to the Kennedy Center’s survival.
And There Is an Even Bigger Problem With the “Trump Will Save It” Argument
The Washington Post obtained internal Kennedy Center financial records this week.
They are brutal.
The board has repeatedly portrayed Trump’s involvement as rescuing the institution from financial collapse. But the Center’s own internal projections show ticket sales and fundraising falling sharply after Trump’s takeover—and deteriorating further after his name was added to the building.
The Kennedy Center budgeted roughly $220 million in revenue for fiscal 2026.
By late May, according to the Post, officials were projecting only about $124 million.
Even after substantial expense reductions, the Center was projecting a $23 million deficit.
Experts who reviewed the records for the Post described the decline as a “nosedive” and said the Kennedy Center’s financial performance was dramatically worse than the broader cultural sector.
The Kennedy Center disputes the implication. It says Trump inherited years of financial mismanagement, that his involvement has attracted new donors and that the renovation ultimately will put the institution on firmer financial footing.
But it makes DOJ’s court filing even harder to understand.
The government is essentially asking the judge to accept Trump as indispensable to the financial survival of an institution whose own internal records show its financial performance deteriorating dramatically under Trump’s stewardship.
But of course, the answer: Don’t blame Trump. Blame Joe Biden. It’s all his fault, not Trump’s.
What Is This Really About?
This is the point where the individual pieces begin to fit together.
Donald Trump wanted his name on the Kennedy Center.
The board he controls put it there.
A federal judge said they couldn’t do that because Congress—not the Kennedy Center board—created the memorial and named it for John F. Kennedy.
Trump’s name came down.
So the board devised another formulation that leaves Kennedy’s name intact but puts Trump’s name prominently on the building anyway, credits Trump with restoring and potentially endowing it, and names the surrounding plaza after him.
Beatty challenged that.
And the Justice Department responded by arguing that Donald Trump isn’t merely someone the board wishes to honor.
He is indispensable, the one person who can fix it.
Without Trump, the money won’t come, they argue. Without the money, the renovation may not happen. Without the renovation, the Kennedy Center could become so unsafe and decrepit that it won’t be viable. And ultimately the John F. Kennedy memorial itself might have to come down.
There is something almost breathtaking about the circularity.
Trump takes control of the Kennedy Center. The institution struggles financially under the new regime. Trump’s board develops a massive renovation plan that includes a shutdown that will, among other things, mask the ignominy of the fact that performers and audiences are staying away precisely because of Trump. The board decides Trump deserves permanent recognition for that renovation. A judge says Trump’s name cannot simply be added to Kennedy’s memorial. And now Trump’s Justice Department argues that recognizing Trump is intertwined with raising the money necessary to save the memorial from eventual destruction.
Maybe there are persuasive answers to all of this.
Judge Cooper gets to start asking for them today.
An emergency hearing is scheduled this afternoon.
And so it goes.
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