Trump’s name added to Kennedy Center exterior, one day after vote to rename

The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, where Donald Trump is currently a president, has been named after one of his hand-picked board members controversially voted to change the name of the landmark. This is the first time a national institution has been named after a US president in office.

The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts was written in metal on the building’s exterior on Friday, according to workers.

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The center’s updated exterior designation, which honors the leadership of President Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy’s enduring legacy, was shared on social media.

The decision has been criticized by former president John F. Kennedy’s family, who was shot by an assassin in 1963, as well as historians and Democratic lawmakers, who claim that only a passing of Congress could change the name of the center, which was designated as a living memorial to Kennedy the year after his death.

“The Kennedy Center was given that name by law.” Former House of Representatives historian Ray Smock told the Associated Press (AP) news agency that a change in the name would necessitate a revision of that 1964 law. The board of directors of the Kennedy Center is not a legislative body. Smock remarked that Congress makes laws.

According to the AP, the law’s naming of the center specifically forbids the board of trustees from embossing someone else’s name on the building’s exterior and from putting that person’s name on the building’s exterior.

When Trump’s term as president ends, Kerry Kennedy, a niece of former president John F. Kennedy, announced in a social media post that she would do so herself.

I’m going to pick up a pickaxe and remove those letters from that building in three years and one month, but I’ll need assistance lowering the ladder. Do you belong? She used X to write.

In the history of the US, it is unprecedented to name a national institution after a president in office. Following the passing of the renowned US leaders, monuments like the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, and even the Kennedy Center were named after their names.

Former Congressman Joe Kennedy III, the grandson of John F. Kennedy, added that the Kennedy Center was a “living memorial to a fallen president” and could not be changed, “no matter what the circumstances are.”

Trump reportedly called the Kennedy Center’s new name “too woke” and claimed on Thursday that he was surprised by it.

He has previously mentioned that he wants to name his organization in the future, and he was recently appointed to the board of directors.