"TRUMP SCREAMED AND THREW A 'CRAZY' TANTRUM: The Shocking Vote To Close The Kennedy Center!"
Trump, Beatty Clash as Kennedy Center Board Votes to Close Building After Court Blocks Naming Plan
A federal judge again ruled that the Kennedy Center cannot add President Donald Trump’s name without congressional approval. Hours later, the Trump-chaired board voted to close the main building for a major renovation, while Rep. Joyce Beatty described a heated virtual exchange with the president.
September 17, 2026
One of Washington’s most prominent cultural institutions is now at the center of an unusually personal legal, political and structural dispute after the Kennedy Center’s board voted to close its main building for renovations on the same day a federal judge again blocked efforts to place President Donald Trump’s name on the complex.
The sequence of events on Tuesday, September 15, brought several months of conflict into a single day. U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Cooper ruled that the Kennedy Center could not install a new memorial or inscription honoring Trump on the building, and could not rename the surrounding campus for him, without congressional authorization. Less than two hours later, the board of trustees, chaired by Trump and dominated by his appointees, voted to close most of the main building immediately for a renovation project expected to cost about $257 million.
Trump then said publicly that the renovation would not proceed if the courts ultimately prevented the center from recognizing him on the building. At the same time, Rep. Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat who sits on the board by virtue of her congressional position and has sued over the naming dispute, gave a sharply critical account of Trump’s conduct during the virtual board meeting.
Beatty told CNN that Trump became angry after the court ruling was discussed and “threw a tantrum.” She described him as shouting, attacking her character and calling her incompetent. Other people familiar with the meeting, speaking to news organizations without being named, also described the exchange as unusually heated. CNN reported that one source characterized the episode as “effing crazy,” while another said Trump could be heard screaming during parts of the meeting.
Those descriptions are accounts from Beatty and other participants or observers; the private board discussion has not been publicly released in full. The White House and Trump’s allies have presented the broader dispute very differently, arguing that the president is trying to rescue a deteriorating institution whose finances and physical condition require urgent intervention.
The disagreement over Trump’s conduct is therefore only one part of a much larger fight. The Kennedy Center dispute now involves at least three separate questions: who has legal authority to alter the identity of a congressionally created memorial, whether the building is safe enough to remain open during construction, and whether the center’s financial condition can support a major renovation without additional fundraising.
The name question is the clearest legally. Congress created the institution as a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy after his assassination. Judge Cooper has repeatedly concluded that the Kennedy Center’s board cannot simply rename the memorial or add another presidential memorial to the facade on its own authority.
In May, Cooper ordered Trump’s name removed after the center had altered the building’s facade to read “The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.” The judge found that only Congress had the authority to change the name. Workers removed Trump’s lettering in June, although scaffolding and a white covering remained over the affected portion of the facade.
The board did not abandon the effort. On August 13, trustees approved new proposals that were designed to recognize Trump without formally recreating the earlier name change. Options included inscriptions crediting him with restoring or renovating the center and a plan to rename the campus in front of the building “President Donald J. Trump Plaza.”
Those proposals returned the dispute to Cooper’s courtroom. In his September 15 ruling, the judge again rejected the board’s attempt, writing that the defendants could not install memorials for Trump, or for anyone else, without Congress’s approval. The Justice Department appealed.
The ruling landed just before a board meeting that had already been expected to consider the center’s financial and physical condition. Trump participated virtually in his role as board chairman. According to Beatty, the judge’s decision was announced early in the meeting and the discussion soon became confrontational.
Beatty said that after she raised questions about the proposed renovation and closure, Trump berated her and accused her of standing in the way of the institution. The Associated Press reported that Trump called Beatty “incompetent” and said she was “holding up everything.” Beatty responded during the meeting and later told CNN that she viewed the president’s conduct as unprofessional.
The White House, meanwhile, attacked Beatty and other Democrats who have opposed Trump’s changes at the center. The administration’s position is that the institution has suffered from years of neglect and that Trump’s intervention is necessary to address both infrastructure problems and financial weakness.
The board ultimately voted to close the main building. Its resolution said the center would stop admitting patrons while renovation work proceeded, but that some programming would continue elsewhere. Educational and artistic programming could continue at the REACH complex, the National Symphony Orchestra could perform at off-site venues, and signature events such as the Kennedy Center Honors and the Mark Twain Prize could be staged away from the main building.
The closure is planned to last as long as two years, although the timeline is now entangled with ongoing litigation. Trump said after the vote that the building would close immediately for safety reasons, but he also linked the renovation to the naming fight. In a Truth Social post, he said the reconstruction and renovation would not take place if the courts ultimately ruled against the board’s effort to recognize him.
That linkage has become one of the most contentious parts of the dispute because Congress has already allocated approximately $257 million for the renovation project. Critics, including Beatty and members of the Kennedy family, argue that repairs to a national cultural institution should not depend on whether the current president receives a personal inscription on the building.
The board and center leadership, however, say the congressional appropriation does not solve every financial problem. Documents prepared for trustees warned of severe operating pressures and said the center could face difficulty meeting payroll and maintenance obligations. A draft board resolution argued that Trump’s continued fundraising involvement was critical to stabilizing the institution and suggested that formal recognition of his role could help secure that involvement.
That argument has been disputed by opponents of the board, who say the center’s financial problems have been worsened by the turmoil surrounding Trump’s takeover. Since Trump returned to office and reshaped the institution’s leadership, artists have canceled appearances, some patrons have protested the changes, and major resident organizations have had to adapt to an increasingly unstable operating environment.
The physical problems are more concrete but are also being contested in court. On September 4, during a severe storm, a roughly four-by-five-foot section of ceiling plaster broke loose inside the Grand Foyer and fell approximately 60 feet to the floor. No one was injured.
Kennedy Center officials said the collapse narrowly missed a security guard and demonstrated the danger posed by water intrusion and deteriorating materials. Inspections afterward identified additional areas with visible water-related damage. Board materials have also cited deteriorating exterior structural components, aging mechanical systems and other maintenance needs as reasons that renovation cannot safely be completed while the main building remains fully occupied.
Those findings strengthened the case made by center management for an immediate shutdown. Trump and other board members have repeatedly warned that delaying repairs could endanger patrons, performers and employees.
Beatty’s lawyers have challenged the way management has characterized some of the technical evidence. They argued in court that one consulting firm cited by the center did not itself conclude that the entire building was unsafe for continued occupancy. In their view, the board is using genuine maintenance problems to support a closure plan that is also tied to the separate political dispute over Trump’s name.
That distinction matters because Cooper had already blocked an earlier closure plan in May. The judge did not rule that the Kennedy Center could never close for renovation. Instead, he found that the board’s earlier decision had been made without sufficient consideration of the consequences and described it as a failure of the trustees’ duty of prudence. He left the board free to reconsider a shutdown if it reached a more carefully considered and independent decision.
The board revisited the issue in August and then accelerated the timetable after the September ceiling collapse. The September 15 resolution ordered the main building closed to patrons immediately.
That action produced a new legal question almost at once. Beatty returned to court, arguing that the latest shutdown violated Cooper’s earlier order. On September 16, Cooper directed the Trump administration to explain whether the new closure plan was consistent with his prior ruling. The administration was ordered to respond while the naming dispute continued toward the appeals court.
As a result, the future of the Kennedy Center is no longer controlled solely by the board. Federal courts are now reviewing both the effort to recognize Trump on the building and the process used to shut the facility for renovation.
The conflict has also raised broader questions about the governance of the Kennedy Center. After returning to the White House, Trump replaced many board members with allies, and the newly configured board selected him as chairman. Beatty remained on the board because her position is tied to Congress rather than a presidential appointment.
That structure has made Beatty one of the most persistent institutional opponents of the changes. Her lawsuit, Beatty v. Trump, challenges actions taken by the board and has already produced the order requiring Trump’s name to be removed from the facade.
Trump’s supporters describe the board overhaul as necessary to change the center’s direction, improve its finances and restore a neglected building. His critics describe it as a political takeover of an institution whose purpose is to serve as both a national performing arts center and a memorial to John F. Kennedy.
The events of September 15 brought those competing views into direct collision. A federal judge reaffirmed that Congress controls the memorial designation. The board responded hours later by closing the building for repairs. Trump tied the renovation’s future to the appeal of the naming decision. Beatty said the president shouted at her during the meeting and accused him of using the center as leverage in a personal dispute.
The Kennedy family has also entered the public debate. Several members have criticized the attempts to attach Trump’s name to the institution. Their objections have centered on the fact that Congress created the center specifically as the national memorial to President Kennedy, not as a general venue for honoring later presidents.
The administration and board have responded that Trump’s role in fundraising and reconstruction deserves formal recognition. Proposals considered by trustees have therefore focused not only on renaming but on inscriptions that would credit Trump with renovation, restoration or financial support.
The court has so far treated those alternatives as subject to the same statutory problem. Cooper’s latest ruling says the board cannot evade Congress’s authority simply by calling a new inscription something other than a formal name change.
Meanwhile, visitors and performers are dealing with the practical consequence: the main building is closed. Fencing went up around the complex after the vote, and the public was denied normal access. Center officials say operations will continue in limited form at other facilities and outside venues while the dispute over renovation proceeds.
The shutdown also comes at a sensitive moment for the National Symphony Orchestra, the Washington National Opera and other artistic institutions associated with the Kennedy Center. A prolonged closure requires alternative venues, new logistical arrangements and uncertainty over future programming.
That is why the case is no longer simply a symbolic argument over a name on a wall. The outcome could affect hundreds of performances, employees, arts organizations, donors and audiences, as well as the preservation of one of Washington’s most recognizable federal cultural buildings.
The $257 million renovation appropriation is central to the practical debate but does not, by itself, settle every question. The center still faces operating expenses, fundraising needs and decisions about the scope and sequence of construction. The board argues that Trump’s involvement is essential to solving those problems. Opponents argue that the board has improperly made the president’s personal recognition a condition for carrying out work Congress has already funded.
Those claims will now be tested against court orders and the factual record surrounding the building’s condition. Cooper’s September 16 order asking the administration to explain the closure suggests that the court will closely examine whether the board’s latest vote was a genuinely independent safety and renovation decision or an attempt to accomplish indirectly what the court had already constrained.
At the same time, the reported confrontation between Trump and Beatty has added a personal dimension that could dominate public coverage even though it is not the central legal issue. Beatty’s characterization of the meeting is significant because she was a direct participant, but it remains one side’s description of a private exchange. Other sources have corroborated that the discussion was heated, while the administration has focused its public response on the center’s deterioration and Beatty’s opposition to Trump’s plans.
What is undisputed is the timing. The judge ruled against the new recognition plan on the morning of September 15. Trump participated in the board meeting shortly afterward. The board then voted to close the main building. Trump later said the renovation would not proceed if the naming-related ruling ultimately stood.
Those facts ensure that the naming dispute and the renovation will remain difficult to separate politically, even if the board argues that safety concerns independently justify the closure.
The next stage will unfold in the courts. The Justice Department is appealing Cooper’s ruling on Trump-related memorials, while Beatty is asking the district court to enforce its earlier restrictions on the center’s closure. The administration must also defend the process by which the board decided that immediate shutdown was necessary.
For the Kennedy Center, the stakes extend beyond the outcome of any single hearing. The institution is confronting a deteriorating building, financial stress, disrupted programming, an intensely political board and a legal dispute over its identity at the same time.
Trump’s intervention has transformed what might otherwise have been a difficult but conventional capital renovation into a national argument over presidential power, congressional authority, public memorials and the management of cultural institutions.
Beatty’s account of Tuesday’s meeting adds another layer to that conflict, but the larger question is now institutional rather than personal: can the Kennedy Center carry out a major reconstruction while its board and its critics remain locked in litigation over who controls the building, what may be written on it and whether it should be closed at all?
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For now, the main building is shut, the proposed recognition of Trump remains blocked, and the renovation is tied to an appeal the president says will determine whether the work goes forward. The courts, rather than the boardroom alone, will decide the next chapter.
