President Donald Trump on Saturday blasted the federal judge who halted his Kennedy Center renovation plan, calling Christopher Cooper “an anti Trump Hater” after the court also ordered his name removed from the arts center.
The ruling on Friday stopped Trump’s planned two-year overhaul of the Kennedy Center and added a separate order that his name be taken off the building, a sharp rebuke that landed just hours before Trump’s public response. He wrote on Truth Social that it was “impossible for me to be treated fairly,” then tied the setback to earlier losses, including the Supreme Court’s rejection in February of his sweeping tariffs. The Kennedy Center is one of Washington’s most visible cultural landmarks, and Trump’s fight over it has become another test of how far he can push institutional change before the courts step in.
Trump’s reaction did not stay with the judge. In the same weekend posts, he said the Kennedy Center would “soon be closed, probably never to open again,” even as he said he was backing away from the renovations and making arrangements to relinquish control to Congress. That leaves the center in a strange position: the overhaul he wanted is on hold, his name has been targeted for removal, and he is now talking about handing control elsewhere while predicting the venue’s collapse. The Kennedy Center had been known as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts before Trump’s second term, and his latest posts show he has turned the dispute into a broader political fight rather than a single construction battle.
He also brought the episode into a separate Saturday post about musicians backing out of a celebration for the country’s 250th anniversary, widening the dispute beyond the courthouse and into the center’s programming. What remains unanswered is whether Trump will actually follow through on relinquishing control to Congress or keep fighting the ruling in public while the courts define how much sway he has left over the Kennedy Center.
