The Kennedy Center's board voted on Tuesday to close the performing arts center's main building, shortly after a federal judge blocked its latest plan to add 
Donald Trump's name to the building. Trump, who chairs the board, said on Truth Social that trustees had voted "almost unanimously" to close it "for safety reasons." The written order from U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper came less than an hour before the vote, the BBC reported.
What did the judge rule? Cooper, who ordered Trump's name removed in May, said that "Defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress's blessing." That blocks an inscription the board approved in August crediting Trump with restoring and renovating the building, and a plan to rename the plaza in his honor.
Why did the board vote to close? Draft resolutions that Rep. Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat and ex officio trustee suing over the naming, filed in court on Monday warned the center could not meet payroll or routine maintenance contracts "within a matter of weeks." Without "appropriate recognition," the board said, Trump was unlikely to "lead the fiscal rescue of the Center," and it listed 10 ways to set his name in marble beneath the center's own. The center's leaders also cite a partial ceiling collapse earlier this month, though Beatty's filing said the draft's unsafe-building claim miscites a consulting group's finding, which "expressly disclaimed providing any such opinion," PBS NewsHour reported.
How did the president and his critics respond? Trump said the Justice Department would appeal and that the repairs, for which Congress has approved more than $250 million, would not proceed unless the courts let the naming plan stand. He also called Cooper "hostile and conflicted," The Hill reported. Beatty, who clashed with Trump at the virtual meeting, told the BBC he "only cares about the Kennedy Center for his vanity."
What has happened since? Fencing went up around the main building on Wednesday. Beatty, whose lawyers said a staffer for her legal team was turned away that day, sought an emergency court hearing to stop what she called Trump's "unlawful closure of the Kennedy Center," PBS NewsHour reported. Under a block Cooper imposed in May, the center must stay open while her lawsuit proceeds unless he lifts it. RFK Jr.'s sister also criticized Trump over the shutdown, The Hill reported.
Figures referenced: Donald Trump. — JudgeMarket.
