Trump's board votes to rename Kennedy Center 'Trump-Kennedy'
The board of the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., voted to rename it the Trump-Kennedy Center, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a post on X Thursday, News.Az reports, citing NBC news.
"I have just been informed that the highly respected Board of the Kennedy Center, some of the most successful people from all parts of the world, have just voted unanimously to rename the Kennedy Center to the Trump-Kennedy Center, because of the unbelievable work President Trump has done over the last year in saving the building," she wrote.
"Congratulations to President Donald J. Trump, and likewise, congratulations to President Kennedy, because this will be a truly great team long into the future! The building will no doubt attain new levels of success and grandeur," Leavitt added in her post.
A spokesperson for the Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News.
Shortly after Leavitt wrote her post, Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, an ex-officio member of the board, disputed Leavitt's account that the vote was "unanimous."
"For the record. This was not unanimous. I was muted on the call and not allowed to speak or voice my opposition to this move," the congresswoman wrote in a post on X.
Efforts to rename the Kennedy Center could run into legal hurdles, experts told NBC News in July, after Republican lawmakers introduced several proposals in Congress to rename the center in honor of the president or the first lady.
The original laws that guided the creation of the Kennedy Center during the Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson administrations specifically prohibited the renaming of the building. It would take an act of Congress to change that now.
After GOP Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho earlier this year introduced an amendment to legislation that would rename the building after first lady Melania Trump, he said that she had not been aware of his efforts prior to his public introduction of the amendment.
Since the start of his second term, the president has sought to reshape the Kennedy Center and its programming.
In February, he abruptly fired members of the center’s board and installed himself as chair, writing in a post on Truth Social at the time, “At my direction, we are going to make the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., GREAT AGAIN.”
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