Judge Demands Explanation from Trump Administration for Tarp Obscuring Kennedy Center
5June 27, 2026
Nearly a month after a federal judge ordered that President Trump’s name be removed from the facade of the John F.Kennedy Centerfor the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., a tarp affixed to the outside of the building is still partially obscuring it from view. This obstruction has prompted another order from US district judge Christopher Cooper: TheTrump administrationmust file a report explaining the presence and purpose of the tarp, as well as the aministration’s broader plans for the building, by July 31st.
The tarp has remained in place since it was installed the morning of June 13th in order to conceal the process of removing Trump’s name from (often enthusiastic) onlookers. Recent photos taken of the portion of the Kennedy Center still hidden by the tarp show the blank space where the sitting president’s name—which was added to the building in December of 2025—used to be.
The Trump-helmed Kennedy Center board voted in March to close the performing arts center for two years, beginning on July 4th, for a $257 million renovation overhaul using funds secured from Congress. At the time, Trump voiced plans to rip out the Kennedy Center’s heating system “in its entirety” and install new marble.
At the end of May, when Cooper ordered the removal of Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center, he also temporarily blocked the President’s construction plans for the premises.
Trump raged at this decision, and posted on Truth Social on May 30th that Cooper – whose wife the President called “an anti Trump Hater” has a “total conflict of Interest, and should be brought up on charges for not revealing these facts.”
After Trump’s name was removed from the facade, the Kennedy Center quickly set up an endowment fund to supplement the $257 million from congress (as well as other private endowments) already allocated for the stalled restoration project.
“What is clear to me is the Trump administration does not want to see that building without Trump’s name on the facade before they could go through all their appeals,” Mallory Miller, the co-founder of the activist group Hands Off the Arts and an ex-Kennedy Center employee, told NBC News on Monday.
Additionally, on Monday, Democratic Representative Joyce Beatty filed a new lawsuit that accused the Trump administration of continuing “to obscure the Kennedy Center’s façade in an act of petty defiance.”