Trump criticizes Federal Judge's remarks over Kennedy Center renovation

President Donald Trump has expressed strong criticism over federal judge's latest remarks to regarding Kennedy center renovation.

The US judge slams federal judge who blocked his renovation of the Kennedy Center as “an anti Trump Hater” and predicted that the nation’s premier performing arts center he wanted to shutter for a two-year overhaul will “soon be closed, probably never to open again.”

In a lengthy post on his Truth Social platform, Trump fumed about the Friday decision from U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, who also ordered Trump’s name removed from the center

Clearly angered by his latest legal setback, he said it was “impossible for me to be treated fairly,” tying Cooper’s ruling to earlier losses, including the Supreme Court’s rejection in February of his sweeping tariffs.

His post aimed to make the case for the project even as he says he’s giving up on it. Hours after Cooper’s decision, Trump said he was backing away from the renovations and making arrangements to relinquish control to Congress of what, until the Republican president’s second term, had been known as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

In another post on Saturday, Trump invoked the Kennedy Center episode as he addressed a spate of musicians backing out of a celebration for the country’s 250th anniversary.

“Cancel it,” Trump wrote, “just like I canceled my involvement with the failing and unsafe to be in Kennedy Center, because a Highly Conflicted, Crooked Federal Judge, said that I should not be allowed to spend my time and money in order to MAKE THE CENTER GREAT AGAIN.”

Trump’s signal that he’s retreating from the center gave hope to artists who had been alienated by his takeover, said Norm Eisen, a former White House ethics lawyer who is involved in a lawsuit challenging Trump’s Kennedy Center plans.

The Kennedy Center was named after John F. Kennedy.

Trump asserted that the Kennedy Center, named for the late Democratic president John F. Kennedy and opened in 1971, was “rusted, rotted, and rat and bug infested” and that the ”new Building would have been incomparable.”

Judge Cooper said in his ruling that the center board’s March 16 vote to close the venue was “ill-informed and seemingly preordained” with no regard for its legal obligations. The administration had announced the work would begin in July and last approximately two years. Cooper’s ruling halts those plans for now.

The judge also found that the board “overstepped its statutory bounds” by adding Trump’s name to the center. Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it, he said. Cooper ordered that Trump’s name be removed within two weeks.

President defends adding name to the center:

Trump on Saturday said it was the board, not him, that added the Trump name to the center. “They thought it would be good for this dying Institution,” he wrote.

Shortly after returning to office in January 2025, he ousted the center’s previous leadership and replaced it with a handpicked board of trustees that named him chairman.

Additionally, the White House did not immediately updated whether Trump would keep serving as the center’s board chairman.