Trump board shuts Kennedy Center after renaming block

What happened

The board of the Kennedy Center, chaired by President Donald Trump and stacked with allies he appointed, voted Tuesday to close most of the performing arts center for renovation. But Trump “immediately threatened to block that work unless his name is restored to the building,” The Wall Street Journal said. Shortly before Tuesday’s vote, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper had blocked the board’s revised proposal to add Trump’s name to the outside of the building and rename the grounds “President Donald J. Trump Plaza.”

Who said what

“Simply put, defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’ blessing,” Cooper wrote. And the board’s “linguistic gymnastics” to try to do so “bucks a federal court order and a statute Congress enacted.”

The Kennedy Center fight “marks a rare setback in Trump’s second term bid to dramatically remake the nation’s capital in his gilded tastes,” The Associated Press said. But Tuesday’s developments also “threw into limbo the fate of one of the nation’s most prominent cultural institutions.”

Without signage “appropriately recognizing President Trump,” Justice Department lawyers argued in court, funding will dry up and the Kennedy Center “will deteriorate further into an unsafe, decrepit structure that will be required to be taken down.” The Trump administration estimates that the renovation will cost $285 million, and Congress allocated $257 million for the project last year.

What next?

The Kennedy Center said it indefinitely closed its doors Tuesday evening for safety reasons, “aggressively” testing Cooper’s order that it remain open, The New York Times said. The center later said an extended closure wouldn’t begin until the court gives its approval.

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