The Kennedy Center’s newest drama isn’t a play

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has begun rebranding to include President Donald Trump’s name after the institution’s board voted this week to adopt a new title — a move that sparked swift condemnation from some Kennedy family members and Democratic leaders, who say the board doesn’t have the legal authority to change it.

The White House said the board voted unanimously Thursday to rename the institution “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts,” with press secretary Karoline Leavitt crediting Trump for what she described as saving the building through reconstruction and fundraising.

By Friday morning, the Kennedy Center had already moved beyond talk: Workers were seen on scaffolding and the building was partially covered by blue tarps as exterior work began.

Additionally, the center’s website had a new logo with Trump’s name added. It seems that other parts of the website remain unchanged.

The URL, kennedy-center.org, is still the primary domain, but now, trump-center.org redirects to the main site. According to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, that new URL was registered in July.

Other URLs like trumpkennedycenter.org, trumpkennedy-center.org and trump-kennedy-center.org seem to have been registered in the last few months, though the websites are not active.

Social media also reflected the proposed new name with a matching logo, while official username handles remain unchanged. The Instagram handle @trumpkennedycenter appears to have already been taken by someone opposing the change.

‘Not unanimous,’ Democrats say

Several Democratic officials who hold ex officio seats on the board pushed back — and disputed the claim that the vote was unanimous, per NBC News.

Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, said she was “muted” on the call and not allowed to voice opposition. Reuters reported that Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said participants were prevented from speaking during the meeting as well.

Democratic leaders released a statement detailing that a name change requires the approval of Congress, according to NBC News, calling the effort “without legal authority” and saying federal law established the center as a memorial to President John F. Kennedy.

Some Kennedy family members call the move an ‘insult’ and ‘beyond comprehension’

The renaming also triggered sharp criticism from members of the Kennedy family, who argue the center is a living memorial to the late president and shouldn’t become a branding battleground.

Maria Shriver — a niece of President Kennedy — called the move “beyond comprehension,” adding: “Can we not see what is happening here? C’mon, my fellow Americans! Wake up! This is not dignified. This is not funny. This is way beneath the stature of the job. It’s downright weird. It’s obsessive in a weird way.”

Her brother, Tim Shriver, described it as an “insult” to President Kennedy, saying, “Notwithstanding their short-sighted action, it is and will remain the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.”

President Kennedy’s grandnephew, former Rep. Joe Kennedy III, also said the board can’t legally rename the center, saying, “It can no sooner be renamed than can someone rename the Lincoln Memorial, no matter what anyone says.”

Thus far, no members of the Kennedy family have publicly come out to support the name change, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the president’s secretary of Health and Human Services.

What happens now

Even as signage and logos begin changing, the biggest fight may be in Congress.

NBC Washington noted that even if legislation advances, it’s unclear whether the Senate could clear the votes needed to move it forward.

In the meantime, the Kennedy Center’s leadership is framing the change as a fresh start. Kennedy Center President Richard Grenell called the rebrand a sign of “bipartisan commitment to the arts” — while critics argue the opposite: that attaching a sitting president’s name to a national arts institution turns it into another political symbol.

And for the arts world, this isn’t happening in a vacuum. Earlier in 2025, “Hamilton” canceled a planned Kennedy Center run after Trump’s takeover of the board, with creator Lin-Manuel Miranda criticizing the direction of the institution, per The New York Times.

“The Kennedy Center was not created in this spirit, and we’re not going to be a part of it while it is the Trump Kennedy Center. We’re just not going to be part of it,” Miranda said.

Other renames since Trump returned to office

The Kennedy Center vote isn’t happening in isolation. Since President Donald Trump began his second term in January 2025, several other high-profile renamings have moved quickly through federal agencies:

• “Gulf of Mexico” → “Gulf of America.” Trump signed an executive order on his first day back, directing federal agencies to adopt “Gulf of America,” and Interior issued follow-up orders to update federal geographic databases and references. It’s unclear what the benefit of the rename is.
• “Denali” → “Mount McKinley.” The same January 2025 order also directed Interior to reinstate “Mount McKinley” in federal naming systems, while keeping Denali National Park and Preserve unchanged.
• “Fort Liberty” → "Fort Bragg." Secretary of War Pete Hegseth ordered the change in February, and the Army implemented it in March, describing the “Bragg” namesake as WWII paratrooper Pfc. Roland L. Bragg, a workaround to avoid honoring the Confederate general the base was originally named for. Other army sites have also received new names.
• “Department of Defense” → "Department of War." Trump ordered the name to be restored the Department of War, which he said in previous remarks was the name when the United States won World War I, World War II and “everything.” He said the department’s title including “defense” doesn’t “sound good” to him and he wants the United States to go back to the Department of War, which has a “stronger sound.”
• “U.S. Institute of Peace” → “Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace.” The administration has placed Trump’s name on the Washington headquarters and rebranded the institute amid an ongoing legal fight over control of the organization.