President Donald Trump‘s handpicked board of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts voted “unanimously” on Thursday to add Trump’s name to the building.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced the center’s new name, the Trump-Kennedy Center, as an acknowledgment of what she called “the unbelievable work President Trump has done over the last year in saving the building. Not only from the standpoint of its reconstruction, but also financially, and its reputation.”
I have just been informed that the highly respected Board of the Kennedy Center, some of the most successful people from all parts of the world, have just voted unanimously to rename the Kennedy Center to the Trump-Kennedy Center, because of the unbelievable work President Trump…
— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) December 18, 2025
Leavitt said the center would rise to new levels of “success” and “grandeur” following the name change. Members of the Kennedy family don’t agree.
Former Democratic representative Joseph Kennedy III, grandnephew of President Kennedy, said the center was named for “a fallen president…by federal law.”
“It can no sooner be renamed than can someone rename the Lincoln Memorial, no matter what anyone says,” he wrote on X.
Maria Shriver, a niece of John F. Kennedy, called the move by Trump “beyond comprehension” in a social media post.
“It is beyond wild that he would think adding his name in front of President Kennedy’s name is acceptable. It is not,” she wrote.
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Despite Leavitt’s claims that the center has flourished under Trump, an analysis from the New York Times found that ticket sales decreased by 50% between this October and the same time last year. A similar report from the Washington Post reported an “across-the-board drop-off” in ticket sales from September to mid-October.
