President Donald Trump is facing more bad news in his fight to permanently transform another landmark in the nation’s capital.
Trump, 80, has spent over a year trying to officially rename the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
The iconic cultural center was founded as a tribute to the late 35th president of the United States.
In February 2025, the newly elected POTUS abruptly replaced the existing Kennedy Center trustees with hand-picked loyalists.
The Trump-formed Board of Trustees then named him as its chairman.
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By December, the president had the building rebranded as the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.
Legal battles over the rechristened Center ensued, and a federal court ruled that the rebranding was illegal because the U.S. Congress had not authorized it.
U.S. District Judge Christopher R. “Casey” ordered Trump to remove his name from the building and also blocked the Center’s planned two-year closure for renovations.
Trump also suffered another loss when the U.S. Court of Appeals found that the president’s legal team failed to prove that removing his name would cause “irreparable harm.”
Following those courtroom defeats, insiders now claim that the Kennedy Center’s reconstruction is being rushed to appease the president.
Democratic Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse released a July 9-dated letter to Matt Floca, executive director of the Kennedy Center. It detailed allegations of mismanagement of federal funds.
The White House received a whistleblower disclosure from the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit whistleblower protection group, allegedly exposing “superficial cosmetic work” at the site.
“Instead of pursuing renovations tailored to the building’s actual needs, the Center rushed a series of renovations driven by the President’s aesthetic whims and his desire to star in a series of televised events in December,” Whitehouse wrote.
He continued, “The Center’s subservience to the President’s desires and its corner-cutting contracting practices have resulted in steel columns that are rusting through fresh paint, a reflecting pool that may have to be torn out and rebuilt, and a brand-new bathroom floor torn out over an offending tile color.”
He said, “This is waste,” then called out Trump for treating a national memorial like a private renovation project.
Whitehouse also requested that the Kennedy Center provide specific information and documents addressing the whistleblower’s concerns by July 23.
As reports alleging that the Kennedy Center hurried the remodeling of the site spread across the internet, people share their takes on the latest fallout from Trump’s vision to make over Washington.
“Does Congress have a responsibility to hold the executive branch responsible for fraud, waste and abuse, fulfilling their role as a co-equal branch of government?” one Facebook user wondered.
Other comments aimed at Trump’s history read, “Shoddy president, shoddy work,” and “Rushed or improper? Sounds like a trump project.”
“Another one of Trump’s excellent contractor buddies?” asked one commenter, while another proposed, “Was it Trump’s neighbor again?”
The reference concerns the multi-million-dollar government contracts awarded to various Trump-aligned companies working on restoration efforts in DC.
Pointing out the obvious, one person said, “As I recall, over the years, buildings Trump made or remade around the country had issues. I know he choose the company that has been ‘working’ on the reflecting pool & is making a mess of it.”
The White House ballroom and the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool are two of many projects in Trump’s ongoing “beautification” mission to reshape D.C.
In October 2025, the White House’s East Wing was demolished to make room for a 90,000-square-foot ballroom on the grounds. Cost is expected to be between $400 million and $600 million.
The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool became a disaster after Trump had the pool’s base painted, resulting in a public-relations nightmare.
Images of the “America flag blue” paint peeling off the bottom and floating to the top said everything they needed to. Not to mention the green algae that quickly overtook the pool, inspiring countless memes making fun of Trump.
Trump also paved over the Rose Garden, decorated the Oval Office in gold, and installed a Presidential Walk of Fame.
After slapping his name on the Kennedy Center, Trump was ordered to strip it from the building by a judge.
He responded to the court decision by putting up a tarp and scaffolding over the front of the arts complex, blocking the signage.
