Kennedy Center To Be Renamed After President Donald Trump

The Kennedy Center board voted unanimously Thursday to rename the Washington, D.C., performing arts venue The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts, The Daily Wire has learned.

Trump had teased the possibility of renaming the center, which he has made a focal point of his second administration. It is unclear how or when the renaming will become official. Earlier attempts have been made to rename the center. In July 2025, Missouri GOP Rep. Bob Onder introduced the “Make Entertainment Great Again” Act, which proposed renaming the entire complex the Donald J. Trump Center for the Performing Arts. Later that month, the House Appropriations Committee approved an amendment to rename the center’s main Opera House after First Lady Melania Trump.

Christmas Sale – Get 40% off New DailyWire+ Annual Memberships

President Kennedy’s grandson Jack Schlossberg objected to the name change, citing a 1983 federal statute that prohibits additional memorials or plaques in the public areas of the Kennedy Center. The statue stated, “There is established in the Smithsonian Institution a bureau, which shall be directed by a board to be known as the Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (hereafter in this subchapter referred to as the ‘Board’), whose duty it shall be to maintain and administer the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and site thereof as the National Center for the Performing Arts, a living memorial to John Fitzgerald Kennedy … the Board shall assure that after December 2, 1983, no additional memorials or plaques in the nature of memorials shall be designated or installed in the public areas of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.”